Questions, questions
Too much Question Time material for tonight. Have to catch a few hours of 'Z's. Overall it was a mass exercise in not getting it. Already it's being twisted. Commentators claim Nick the Griff was 'slaughtered' and maybe if you know deep politics, he was. That, however, is not what I saw. I saw every panel member and almost every audience question aimed at him as if he was there to be whipped. I saw him constantly on the defensive. Perhaps, in political-land, that consitutes 'slaughter' but imagine you're like me and don't know the deep stuff. Imagine you're in a dead coal mining town or a sleepy hamlet and know nothing of politics at all. Imagine you were the sort of person who would consider Question Time insanely boring and would never watch it, but did tonight because of all the hype and the rioting loonies outside. What would you see? Pretty much the same thing the average, non-political Frenchman would have seen when Mr. Le Pen made his debut on French TV. A load of politicians they despise, beating hell out of one politician they hadn't seen before. I also watched the 'This Week' programme afterwards, with Alan Davies. A Labour woman (I missed the intro so I don't know if she was an activist or MP or councillor) drew the stunning conclusion that heavily multicultural areas don't vote BNP. Duh. She then explained that BNP support is out of the centre, in poorer, mainly white areas and seemed to be thinking along the lines of 'Well, if we make those areas multicultural too, the BNP won't get votes'. Facepalm time. All the BNP need do is go to those areas and say 'Hey, guess what they plan now'. Alan Davies seemed a reasonable sort on the programme. His own experience sounds like mine - growing up in the 60's and 70's in an almost totally white area, with skinheads wandering about and NF scrawled all over the place. His was suburbia, mine was a mining-based council estate. Same makeup, different pocket money level. In our area, the skinheads had no dark targets so they used to beat up we white kids instead. It did not advance their cause. Nor did shouting about getting the 'blacks out' because we'd look around and say 'The black what?' There were none. We had no idea what they were on about but we knew who they'd hit so we kept well away. Just a quick point or two for tonight. The Telegraph claims that Nick the Griff used his TV appearance to attack Muslims and gays. They forget that many people actually watched it. He did not attack Muslims, he said, as the paper quotes: Mr Griffin said Islam was not compatible with life in Britain, Well, almost. He said Islamic values were not compatible. He did not say the Koran should be banned. He did not insist all Muslims convert to Christianity. He said he did not want to see Islamic laws and values imposed on the UK. Now, will that cause more or less support among the proles? You tell me. He did say that he was not personally keen on homosexuals. A gay woman in the audience said the loathing was mutual. Well, okay, but why is it good and right for group A to hate group B, but evil and nasty for group B to hate group A? Don't ask me. Ask the viewers because they are thinking about that right now. Many people have things they don't like to see. I don't like Labour canvassers or Tory canvassers (I feel a bit sorry for Lib Dem canvassers because they are easy to tie in knots) or most other canvassers other than the pretty ones. So am I canvassophobic? Probably. Should I learn to celebrate (I'm really getting sick of that word) canvassism? Sod that. Look, some people don't like homosexuality, so what? A lot of people don't like me. I ignore them or play with them but I am not going to get upset about it. Can anyone who's gay honestly say there is nothing at all in this world they really don't like? Prejudices don't matter unless you do something about them, and I for one am not about to go around stabbing canvassers. I was not converted by Nick Griffin's appearance. I still won't vote BNP. But to say he was 'slaughtered' is simply denial. He was not slaughtered. He was attacked from all sides and he held up under those attacks. I cannot agree with his definition of British because I know dark-skinned families who have been here longer than mine, so to deny them Britishness I'd first have to renounce it myself. I am not a typical Brit, because of that. All that 'we are all immigrants' stuff is not going to work on people who can walk around their local graveyard and pay respects to great-great-great-grandparents. All this 'America is one big melting pot' is never going to work as long as the native American people are treated as different, suppressed, and not part of that melting pot. The Telegraph has already started reading more into the programme than was there. I expect the other papers to follow suit. Their reports will have the opposite effect to what was intended, as usual. Still they don't get it. The politicians on the panel all have a record of being despised by the public. The BNP are an unknown to the public. Nick the Griff stated he'd pull the troops out of Iraq and leave that country alone. Islamophobic? Really? He stated that the State should not interfere in anythng adults choose to do in their own homes. Homophobic? Really? Maybe he is both those things but that is not how it came across. There will be much more spin in those papers tomorrow. They will forget that a lot of people saw the programme and that those people will realise that the quotes are out of context and twisted. They will seek to demonise the BNP and will only succeed in getting people to think 'That's not what he said'. As a BNP-fighting exercise, I think this is going to backfire very badly indeed. As usual. Underdogbitesupwards
Too much Question Time material for tonight. Have to catch a few hours of 'Z's. Overall it was a mass exercise in not getting it. Already it's being twisted. Commentators claim Nick the Griff was 'slaughtered' and maybe if you know deep politics, he was. That, however, is not what I saw. I saw every panel member and almost every audience question aimed at him as if he was there to be whipped. I saw him constantly on the defensive. Perhaps, in political-land, that consitutes 'slaughter' but imagine you're like me and don't know the deep stuff. Imagine you're in a dead coal mining town or a sleepy hamlet and know nothing of politics at all. Imagine you were the sort of person who would consider Question Time insanely boring and would never watch it, but did tonight because of all the hype and the rioting loonies outside. What would you see? Pretty much the same thing the average, non-political Frenchman would have seen when Mr. Le Pen made his debut on French TV. A load of politicians they despise, beating hell out of one politician they hadn't seen before. I also watched the 'This Week' programme afterwards, with Alan Davies. A Labour woman (I missed the intro so I don't know if she was an activist or MP or councillor) drew the stunning conclusion that heavily multicultural areas don't vote BNP. Duh. She then explained that BNP support is out of the centre, in poorer, mainly white areas and seemed to be thinking along the lines of 'Well, if we make those areas multicultural too, the BNP won't get votes'. Facepalm time. All the BNP need do is go to those areas and say 'Hey, guess what they plan now'. Alan Davies seemed a reasonable sort on the programme. His own experience sounds like mine - growing up in the 60's and 70's in an almost totally white area, with skinheads wandering about and NF scrawled all over the place. His was suburbia, mine was a mining-based council estate. Same makeup, different pocket money level. In our area, the skinheads had no dark targets so they used to beat up we white kids instead. It did not advance their cause. Nor did shouting about getting the 'blacks out' because we'd look around and say 'The black what?' There were none. We had no idea what they were on about but we knew who they'd hit so we kept well away. Just a quick point or two for tonight. The Telegraph claims that Nick the Griff used his TV appearance to attack Muslims and gays. They forget that many people actually watched it. He did not attack Muslims, he said, as the paper quotes: Mr Griffin said Islam was not compatible with life in Britain, Well, almost. He said Islamic values were not compatible. He did not say the Koran should be banned. He did not insist all Muslims convert to Christianity. He said he did not want to see Islamic laws and values imposed on the UK. Now, will that cause more or less support among the proles? You tell me. He did say that he was not personally keen on homosexuals. A gay woman in the audience said the loathing was mutual. Well, okay, but why is it good and right for group A to hate group B, but evil and nasty for group B to hate group A? Don't ask me. Ask the viewers because they are thinking about that right now. Many people have things they don't like to see. I don't like Labour canvassers or Tory canvassers (I feel a bit sorry for Lib Dem canvassers because they are easy to tie in knots) or most other canvassers other than the pretty ones. So am I canvassophobic? Probably. Should I learn to celebrate (I'm really getting sick of that word) canvassism? Sod that. Look, some people don't like homosexuality, so what? A lot of people don't like me. I ignore them or play with them but I am not going to get upset about it. Can anyone who's gay honestly say there is nothing at all in this world they really don't like? Prejudices don't matter unless you do something about them, and I for one am not about to go around stabbing canvassers. I was not converted by Nick Griffin's appearance. I still won't vote BNP. But to say he was 'slaughtered' is simply denial. He was not slaughtered. He was attacked from all sides and he held up under those attacks. I cannot agree with his definition of British because I know dark-skinned families who have been here longer than mine, so to deny them Britishness I'd first have to renounce it myself. I am not a typical Brit, because of that. All that 'we are all immigrants' stuff is not going to work on people who can walk around their local graveyard and pay respects to great-great-great-grandparents. All this 'America is one big melting pot' is never going to work as long as the native American people are treated as different, suppressed, and not part of that melting pot. The Telegraph has already started reading more into the programme than was there. I expect the other papers to follow suit. Their reports will have the opposite effect to what was intended, as usual. Still they don't get it. The politicians on the panel all have a record of being despised by the public. The BNP are an unknown to the public. Nick the Griff stated he'd pull the troops out of Iraq and leave that country alone. Islamophobic? Really? He stated that the State should not interfere in anythng adults choose to do in their own homes. Homophobic? Really? Maybe he is both those things but that is not how it came across. There will be much more spin in those papers tomorrow. They will forget that a lot of people saw the programme and that those people will realise that the quotes are out of context and twisted. They will seek to demonise the BNP and will only succeed in getting people to think 'That's not what he said'. As a BNP-fighting exercise, I think this is going to backfire very badly indeed. As usual. Underdogbitesupwards