Don't these people ever read what they've written before it goes out?
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The one thing Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, will not want on television next week is a fair fight.
You know, one on one. He would rather take on the mob, the crowd, a crush of angry faces, hecklers in the audience, violence on the streets. He would rather be shouted down.
The last thing the BNP need is to be heard. That way they cannot project themselves as victims, the suppressed voice of the disenfranchised and ignored, the champions of free speech.
So don't turn up at the BBC. Don't go. Leave him to it. Let him come into the mainstream of BBC1's Question Time because then the level of thought, of intellect, is on show.
These are not smart people. Face it, if they were, they wouldn't be in the BNP.
There was a BBC radio interview with BNP members that caused a lot of controversy this week.
In the report, the speakers were introduced as Mark and Joey, without letting on that they were in fact Mark Collett, BNP publicity director, and Joseph Barber, head of Great White Records, the BNP label home to such classics as West Wind, 'a collection of nationalist songs penned by Nick Griffin'.
Tunes you can whistle, and invade Poland to, apparently.
The Mark and Joey episode was shoddy journalism by the BBC, akin to introducing two blokes called Dave and George as supporters of the Tory Party.
But it hardly mattered, as what these numbskulls said was so gormless, so unfathomably stupid, that they should be allowed airtime almost on demand.
They said Ashley Cole, the England footballer, was not ethnically British. They described him as having come to this country.
Well, he didn't have to come far, what with being born in Stepney, East London. He played in the same boys' team as my wife's cousin David and was not considered an exotic import.
He was like a lot of Stepney kids. His mum is white, his dad is black, but Ashley is born and bred British and a two-second internet search would confirm it.
The idea that we have anything to fear debating matters of importance ON A trip to Germany a few years ago, a guy was telling us about a great Turkish bath and spa he had found across town.
'Of course,' he said, 'you have to be naked when you go in there so you need to, you know, look your best.' I'm talking to the gentlemen here. You know what he means, don't you guys?
Maybe it's cold, maybe you've been swimming, we all know what can happen down there. And if you don't, let's just say things can get a little temperamental.
Most men are never completely confident of being represented in with these clowns is the insult. They can't even get celebrity gossip right.
The same with Geert Wilders, the Right-wing Dutch politician, who was initially barred from Britain having made a film condemning Islam. After a court ruling, he should be over this week, at the invitation of Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
Let him come. Let him debate his comparison of Islam and Nazism. Let him square off his membership of the Party of Freedom with a desire to ban immigration from all Muslim countries. What are we worried about?
The BBC has chosen the playwright Bonnie Greer, an urbane black woman and resident in Britain for 23 years, and Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory shadow minister for social cohesion, to go up against Griffin on Question Time, and the idea they need help from an angry mob outside is patronising indeed.
Greer grew up in a gang neighbourhood in Chicago. Chances are she has faced down tougher opponents than Griffin without requiring the assistance of the local Students Union.
'I think Britain is decent,' Greer said in an interview in 2006. 'I think British people are decent people. There is still a sense of shame about certain things. No British person would say they were comfortable being a racist. You would never go on air and admit that in Britain.'
Griffin will. And isn't Greer's pre- emptive denunciation more eloquent, more powerful, than anything that can be shouted while scrapping with coppers in a car park near the BBC in Shepherd's Bush?
Intellectually, Greer can handle the BNP all day; for that matter, so could Ashley Cole. the best light all day, every day.
So the news that a full body scanner showing key outlines of the human frame is on trial at Manchester Airport, with a view to being introduced at security checkpoints throughout the country, affords a whole new sphere for modern male anxiety.
The good news is that it will not be compulsory and passengers can still take the option of undergoing an old-fashioned body search instead. My guess is that some may even start that process before the scan, just to check they're presentable.
Link
The one thing Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, will not want on television next week is a fair fight.
You know, one on one. He would rather take on the mob, the crowd, a crush of angry faces, hecklers in the audience, violence on the streets. He would rather be shouted down.
The last thing the BNP need is to be heard. That way they cannot project themselves as victims, the suppressed voice of the disenfranchised and ignored, the champions of free speech.
So don't turn up at the BBC. Don't go. Leave him to it. Let him come into the mainstream of BBC1's Question Time because then the level of thought, of intellect, is on show.
These are not smart people. Face it, if they were, they wouldn't be in the BNP.
There was a BBC radio interview with BNP members that caused a lot of controversy this week.
In the report, the speakers were introduced as Mark and Joey, without letting on that they were in fact Mark Collett, BNP publicity director, and Joseph Barber, head of Great White Records, the BNP label home to such classics as West Wind, 'a collection of nationalist songs penned by Nick Griffin'.
Tunes you can whistle, and invade Poland to, apparently.
The Mark and Joey episode was shoddy journalism by the BBC, akin to introducing two blokes called Dave and George as supporters of the Tory Party.
But it hardly mattered, as what these numbskulls said was so gormless, so unfathomably stupid, that they should be allowed airtime almost on demand.
They said Ashley Cole, the England footballer, was not ethnically British. They described him as having come to this country.
Well, he didn't have to come far, what with being born in Stepney, East London. He played in the same boys' team as my wife's cousin David and was not considered an exotic import.
He was like a lot of Stepney kids. His mum is white, his dad is black, but Ashley is born and bred British and a two-second internet search would confirm it.
The idea that we have anything to fear debating matters of importance ON A trip to Germany a few years ago, a guy was telling us about a great Turkish bath and spa he had found across town.
'Of course,' he said, 'you have to be naked when you go in there so you need to, you know, look your best.' I'm talking to the gentlemen here. You know what he means, don't you guys?
Maybe it's cold, maybe you've been swimming, we all know what can happen down there. And if you don't, let's just say things can get a little temperamental.
Most men are never completely confident of being represented in with these clowns is the insult. They can't even get celebrity gossip right.
The same with Geert Wilders, the Right-wing Dutch politician, who was initially barred from Britain having made a film condemning Islam. After a court ruling, he should be over this week, at the invitation of Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
Let him come. Let him debate his comparison of Islam and Nazism. Let him square off his membership of the Party of Freedom with a desire to ban immigration from all Muslim countries. What are we worried about?
The BBC has chosen the playwright Bonnie Greer, an urbane black woman and resident in Britain for 23 years, and Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory shadow minister for social cohesion, to go up against Griffin on Question Time, and the idea they need help from an angry mob outside is patronising indeed.
Greer grew up in a gang neighbourhood in Chicago. Chances are she has faced down tougher opponents than Griffin without requiring the assistance of the local Students Union.
'I think Britain is decent,' Greer said in an interview in 2006. 'I think British people are decent people. There is still a sense of shame about certain things. No British person would say they were comfortable being a racist. You would never go on air and admit that in Britain.'
Griffin will. And isn't Greer's pre- emptive denunciation more eloquent, more powerful, than anything that can be shouted while scrapping with coppers in a car park near the BBC in Shepherd's Bush?
Intellectually, Greer can handle the BNP all day; for that matter, so could Ashley Cole. the best light all day, every day.
So the news that a full body scanner showing key outlines of the human frame is on trial at Manchester Airport, with a view to being introduced at security checkpoints throughout the country, affords a whole new sphere for modern male anxiety.
The good news is that it will not be compulsory and passengers can still take the option of undergoing an old-fashioned body search instead. My guess is that some may even start that process before the scan, just to check they're presentable.
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