The BNP, the BBC and a Sense of Perspective

Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

Fraser makes a number of excellent points in his latest post on the BNP and I also agree that Jack Straw is not a great choice to debate Nick Griffin. Straw is too self-righteous for the job and, despite his lefty past, neither the bruiser he thinks he is, nor possessed of the kind of rapier wit that will, gratifyingly, make the BNP appear as the ridiculous oafs they are.

Nonetheless, it strikes me that there’s rather too much hand-wringing about Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. He leads, let us remember, a party that has never won an election that actually matters. Rather few than one in 60 Britons voted for the BNP in their “breakthrough” performance in this year’s European Parliamentary elections. At a rough estimate that makes the BNP about as popular as a middling-sized Preimership football club. Everton, say. Or, if you prefer, the party’s support is roughly the same as the population of Leicestershire.