Nick Griffin on Question Time/ Image: NewsPics Ltd/BBC
The aftermath of Thursday night’s Question Time, BBC1’s flagship current affairs show, is everywhere; from tabloids to broadsheets, Facebook to Twitter, blogs to bus stops. As I type, the BBC Trust is busy setting up ad-hoc committees to deal with appeals made against Griffin appearing on the show. But I’m left wondering why the uproar even began, and continues today.
The whole scenario is a storm in a teacup, starting with Peter Hain’s and Alan Johnson’s opposition to the BBC’s decision to allow Nick Griffin to partake in the ‘debate’. Are not some of the fundamental pillars of democracy freedom of expression, speech and unrestricted debate? On this issue, I agree with Mark Thompson: denying Griffin’s presence on QT would have not only gone against the entire premise of liberal democracy, but would have also harked back to the Thatcherian broadcasting ban of the 1980s that firmly belongs back in that decade and not in 2009.
The show did not tell us anything we did not already know or were not expecting. Of course Griffin was going to be controversial and air his hollow policies and historically-incorrect data (I would like to find a definition and evidence of ‘indigenous Briton’). Bravo, Gordon Brown, for having the foresight to predict that all the hour-long session would do was expose Griffin’s racism and bigotry.
This was also thanks to the tasteless level of debate throughout the show. Jack Straw’s circumvention of audience questions regarding the BNP’s rise to power being correlated with Labour’s failings in immigration policy, and perpetual cornering of Griffin and his policies turned QT into nothing more than a repetitive witch-hunt. It highlighted Straw’s inability to take responsibility for his party’s failings and to admit the entire reason Griffin became an MEP and guest on the show is thanks to the work of Labour, as Gary Younge earlier commented on in much depth.
The whole programme only reminded us of the stagnant and bleak nature of British politics today. It’s an autumnal Friday, but we remain frustrated, discontented, and still no closer to healing the vulnerability and cynicism the Labour Party’s deception and failures have plunged us into.
For highlights and transcripts of the show click here.
October 24th, 2009 | 
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