BBC Accused of Martyring BNP on QT

[Teddy Bear]

I have been wondering recently why the BBC invited the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, to appear on Question Time this evening. They had no obligation to do so, an despite appeals from concerned people and politicians to reconsider, they have decided to push ahead.

It occurs to me that besides the fact that the BBC have certainly boosted publicity for themselves, since most of the news media and bloggers are following the story, but I believe they have another motive.

They continually refer to the BNP as 'Right Wing' even though that itself is a bone of contention, and was questioned recently by Daniel Hannan at The Telegraph.

With this in mind, I see that the BBC accomplish 2 further 'goals' - one, that they can flout themselves as 'impartial and unbiased', and two, that by putting the focus of this extreme racist group as 'right wing', they emphasize how 'normal and justified' is their recognized institutional left wing viewpoint. I would bet that in the weeks to come following the QT debate, you will hear the mealy mouthed, holier than thou justification rolling out from the BBC.

In my mind, it makes them more sordid and sullied than they already are.

[Teddy Bear]

I see a comment in the Daily Mail expressing the situation in the same way, as I'm sure many others have too.

The bare-faced BBC
By Daily Mail Comment
Last updated at 3:47 PM on 23rd October 2009
The BBC's Mark Thompson said the corporation had no choice but to invite Nick Griffin onto Newsnight

Talk about bare-faced hypocrisy.
Amidst the furore over the BBC's decision to invite Nick Griffin on to Question Time, its director general, Mark Thompson, claims that he had no choice because of the Corporation's 'central principle of political impartiality'.
What a pity that the BBC for years has comprehensively trampled this so-called 'central principle' into the dirt.
This is an organisation that's utterly in thrall to the left-wing agenda of the majority of its staff.
Until very recently, the BBC systematically censored any debate about immigration into Britain, a nation which, as was revealed yesterday, is on its way to a population of 70million.
It also treats global warming with the fervour of a religion, and is so pro-Brussels that even a report commissioned by the BBC itself found that it was hopelessly biased against the Eurosceptic position.
It's an institution that by its very nature promotes alternative lifestyles and minority groups at the expense of traditional values, and it doesn't have much time for Christianity, capitalism, or the countryside either.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of letting Mr Griffin onto Question Time, the BBC can't pretend that some sacred principle of political impartiality had anything to do with it

[Teddy Bear]

I know from personal experience that the BBC decide who to select for the audience on Question Time based on questions asked on the application form. At the time I applied it was whether one supported the Iraq war or not. Then they select which questions will be put to the panel from those offered by the audience, so everything is pretty much choreographed. The only 'surprise' might come from those raising the hands in the audience to raise a point withthe panel.

Now the BBC have gone one step further on last nights show. They pretty much dictated what the questions should be based on the the characterization of Nick Griffin they presented to the audience. Not to say it was untrue, he is an unsavoury and despicable creature by any account, but by creating this intense vilification, they may have made a martry out of him and reversely benefitted his cause.

Note the questionaire below that was given to the audience prior to the debate.

The BNP backlash - MPs accuse BBC of playing into Nick Griffin's hands by stage-managing Question Time onslaught
By James Chapman
Last updated at 11:00 PM on 23rd October 2009
The BBC was accused last night of letting BNP bigot Nick Griffin 'play the martyr' amid bitter recriminations over his appearance on Question Time.
Senior MPs accused the corporation of whipping up controversy to maximise viewing figures - then crudely stage-managing the programme so he was under attack throughout from the audience and fellow panellists.

They said the attempt to expose his racist views risked backfiring because some voters would feel he had been unfairly treated.

Senior MPs have accused the BBC of playing into the BNP's hands by stage-managing Question Time and making Griffin 'a martyr'
Last night it emerged that:

Complaints that the show was biased against Mr Griffin outnumbered by more than two to one those about him being allowed to appear;
Some of the audience appear to have been rushed through the vetting process in a bid to emphasise the multi-cultural nature of London;
Audience members were briefed to ask 'provocative' questions and host David Dimbleby told them it was acceptable to boo;
More than eight million people tuned in - four times the usual audience and more than watched Strictly Come Dancing last week;
The BNP boasted that since Mr Griffin's appearance, 3,000 people had registered to sign up as members;
Joel Weiner, 17, who dramatically confronted Mr Griffin about Holocaust denial, said he applied to attend a Question Time programme more than a year ago, but was approached just 24 hours before filming.
Mr Griffin himself said he planned to make a formal complaint to the BBC, over 'twisting' the programme format. He said the episode 'was not a genuine Question Time, it was a lynch mob'.
'People wanted to see me and hear me talking about things like the postal strike. Let's do it again and do it properly this time,' he added.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson admitted the exposure would lead to a short-term bounce for the far-Right party, but predicted that in the long term it will have done them 'no good at all'.
'When the content sinks in I think people will recoil,' he said.
But other senior Labour and Conservative figures said the BBC risked long-term damage by allowing Question Time to be transformed into the 'Nick Griffin Show'.
While Question Time normally ranges across issues of the day, which this week included the postal strike and the economy, all but one of the questions selected focused on the BNP and its policies.

Mr Griffin, one of two BNP candidates elected to the European Parliament earlier this year, faced fierce attacks on race, immigration and the Holocaust.
Viewers heard him brand Islam 'wicked' and smear homosexuals as 'creepy'.
He went on to make inflammatory remarks about the composition of the audience, suggesting London was 'ethnically cleansed' and 'no longer British'.
Labour former Home Secretary David Blunkett said last night: 'The BBC played into Griffin's hands by managing to create a victim out of a perpetrator. Their totally unwarranted blanket coverage on news broadcasts before and after Question Time was blatant self-promotion.
'They made the format so obviously skewed that they have allowed him to play the martyr. It was all about him and the BNP, not about the issues of the day.

'They have achieved his victimhood and that may make people much more open to hearing what he has to say in the future.'

Former shadow home secretary David Davis said: 'The point of democratic discussion is to dissect the weaknesses and stupidities of extremists, not to make them the gift of martyrdom.
'David Dimbleby is old enough and wise enough to have been able to present a properly impartial exposé of Mr Griffin's many inadequacies without having to resort to such crude stage management.'
Labour MP Diane Abbott said Mr Griffin's appearance had given the BNP unnecessary credibility and exposure by 'putting him in the mainstream'.
She warned that many people across the country would have thought he was picked on by the other panellists.
But Labour minister Margaret Hodge, in whose Barking and Dagenham constituency the BNP won 11 council seats in 2006, insisted: 'The BBC gave Nick Griffin the opportunity to show himself up for what he is - flaky, dishonest and bigoted.
'I have been in Barking all day asking people about it, and one or two did say they felt he had been bullied. But overwhelmingly people thought it had exposed him as a bigot.'
Activists on far-Right websites condemned the BNP leader for being 'overawed' and 'flustered'.
One said: 'The public despise indecisiveness as they see it as weakness, and all these quotes from Nick's past make the party look bad.'
The BBC defended the programme, saying viewers would make up their own minds.

A spokesman said: 'It is normal for the programme to reflect topics that are in the news - people would accept that the BNP and Question Time have been prominent topics.'

Anatomy of an ambush: How the BBC hand picked its audience

Question Time is supposed to be a random cross-section of the British public who put the questions of the day to leading politicians.
But extraordinary details emerged yesterday of the lengths to which the BBC went to make sure Nick Griffin got his 'comeuppance' on Thursday night's incendiary edition of the programme, which drew a record 8.1million audience.
Observers claimed that the make-up of the audience appeared to have been deliberately slanted towards the young, multi-cultural and metropolitan.

The BBC flatly denies cherry-picking activists or potential troublemakers. It says that those selected were plucked from a database only containing those who had applied to go on the show before Mr Griffin's appearance had been confirmed.

However a British Asian who clashed with the BNP leader revealed last night that he had been approached to take part only a couple of days before the show.
Khush Klare, 38, asked Mr Griffin what country a British-born Asian was supposed to return to. He then suggested that Mr Griffin himself should go to the South Pole, provoking a wave of laughter.
Mr Klare, a Hindu director of a financial services company, said he had been approached to go on the show by a friend from university. 'When he told me that Nick Griffin would be there on behalf of the BNP, I said, "Absolutely".'
Up to ten BNP supporters are thought to have been in the 200-strong audience. The BBC points out that it always attempts to ensure that the audience is representative of the show's town or city - which on Thursday was London.

Be provocative: The instructions handed to audience members along with profiles of the panel, starting with Nick Griffin

However, members of the audience have told the Mail they were handed a detailed crib-sheet which encouraged them to ask questions which were 'short, sharp and provocative'.
The word 'provocative' was underlined in the document handed to them before they went into the studio.
In addition, this sheet contained profiles of the five guests - Mr Griffin, LibDem Chris Huhne, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, Tory peer Baroness Warsi and writer Bonnie Greer. In every single profile, the panellist's views on race was highlighted.
During the warm-up for Thursday's recording of the show, audience members were told they should feel free to jeer when they considered it appropriate.

Joel Weiner, 17, who confronted Mr Griffin about Holocaust denial, said he applied to appear on the programme more than a year ago but was approached 'out of the blue' on Wednesday - just 24 hours before filming.
The schoolboy's grandfather escaped from Germany to Palestine the day before war broke out but many of his family were lost - some, he believes, in Auschwitz.

Joel said he felt it was important to ask Mr Griffin about his views on the Holocaust. 'I wanted to show him for what he was. I think he struggled to answer the question. The atmosphere in the studio was very tense but there was a real sense of camaraderie. Everyone was together against Nick Griffin apart from a small group of supporters.'
Those who apply to any Question Time programme have to go through a vetting process via its website. They are asked for their name, age, occupation and contact details, but also if they are members of any political parties or campaign groups. They also answer questions about their views on the situation in Iraq, whether they are pro-Europe or sceptical and what issues they would like to discuss on the show.
Audience member Ellen Mellington, a 29-year-old project manager from South London, said members of the production team told her they wanted provocative questions.
'It seemed like they were trying to whip up a bit of a frenzy in the studio. What surprised me most was when David Dimbleby came in before the taping and started to speak to the audience. He told us it was OK to boo, which I didn't quite agree with. I don't think you should boo at people.'
Beth Pritchard, from Elephant and Castle, South London, was seen attacking Mr Griffin's views after he claimed teaching homosexuality to school children was 'perverse'.
Miss Pritchard told the Mail she was so shocked by his remarks she wanted to make her views heard. 'I was just particularly shocked at the venom coming from Mr Griffin and his supporters in the audience. It was just anger that spurred me on to say something.
'I've never actually experienced anyone making homophobic comments before and I found it quite bizarre.'
The 28-year-old bank clerk, who wed her girlfriend two years ago in a civil partnership, said her comment to Mr Griffin had not been one of the two questions she prepared before the taping began.
'Nick Griffin's remarks just riled me,' she said. 'I just put my hand up and they came to me for my comment. There's no way they could have been aware of my sexuality or known who I was. It was all completely random.'
Miss Pritchard said audience members were not allocated particular seats and claimed that the 'handful' of BNP members who attended deliberately spread themselves out.
'I think they wanted to make it look like Mr Griffin had a huge range of support across the whole audience.'

[Teddy Bear]

The Telegraph revealed insider information today that the production company for Question Time, had been trying for quite some time to get the BBC to invite the BNP on the programme to increase ratings. Well it surely worked, as 8 million viewers, the highest ever, tuned into to watch it.

However, the BBC used idealistic motives as the reason they did, which is typically how they look first to justify anything they do in their usual mealy mouthed way. It shows too, that ultimately they have no regard for ethics or morality to achieve their self-serving goals, as initially the BBC hierarchy had baulked at the idea, so they obviously knew it was wrong, but in the end they caved in.

How long is the British public going to carry on paying for this shameful pretense for an 'impartial' media organisation. With little quality and no morality, it represents the voice of absurdity to the rest of the world, and even BBC lackeys (Beeboids), and those whose agenda is fed by the BBC must be finding it harder and harder to argue in favour of maintaining it.

The British National Party and BBC Question Time: an anatomy of a PR coup
The BBC’s controversial move to invite BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time was driven as much by internal politics and the desire for increased ratings as by high-minded journalistic ideals, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

By Patrick Sawer
Published: 10:30PM BST 24 Oct 2009

As the debate continued this weekend over who won Thursday's Question Time debate, the BBC claimed that the programme was a vindication of its decision to invite Mr Griffin on the programme – a decision it insists was born from its obligation to show due impartiality to a legally constituted party.

The programme, which gained an audience of eight million – the largest in its 30 year history, was the culmination of years of lobbying by Mentorn, the company which produces the show – often against the wishes of members of the Question Time crew and BBC staff.

BBC executives, including its director general, Mark Thompson, repeatedly vetoed the plan, saying it would be regarded as unacceptable by the majority of viewers. David Dimbleby, the show's veteran presenter, is understood to have been torn over the issue.

Mentorn failed to respond to repeated requests for comment but a BBC insider claimed that the company persisted in putting its case to Mr Thompson, his deputy Mark Byford, Helen Boaden, the corporation's director of news, and Ric Bailey, its chief political adviser, knowing that it would give the show an unprecedented ratings coup.

"From at least 2007 onwards the makers of Question Time repeatedly asked the BBC for the BNP to be included in the show. The BBC's position was that the BNP was an anti-democratic party that should not be given a platform in a way that would treat them as mainstream politicians.

"But Mentorn kept pressing their case. They felt it would make great TV. Although the company was too clever to say so, it was chasing ratings and desperate to secure its contract, which comes up for renewal in about two years.

"They were putting a lot of pressure on BBC executives to give the go-ahead to a BNP Question Time slot, repeatedly firing off emails suggesting the time was now right."

The party's success in June's European elections, when Mr Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons won seats to Brussels, led to a rethink by Thompson and Byford.

Instead of pointing out that the BNP's vote had risen by a mere 1.3 per cent and that their electoral triumph was due to millions of Labour voters staying at home, they said that Griffin had now earned the right to a seat at the Question Time table.

Writing before the show's broadcast last week, Mr Thompson said: "The BNP has demonstrated a level of support which would normally lead to an occasional invitation to join the panel on Question Time. It is for that reason alone … that the invitation has been extended.

"It is unreasonable and inconsistent to take the position that a party like the BNP is acceptable enough for the public to vote for, but not acceptable enough to appear on democratic platforms like Question Time."

The BBC even argued that it would have been taken to court by the BNP had it not included it in an episode of Question Time.

But the insider said: "The same figures in the BBC who are now arguing they had to have the BNP on the show were dead set against it.

"They used to say there were under no obligation to give the BNP a platform because they were an extremist party. Now they say they are obliged to give them a fair hearing.

"Where once they refused to give them the oxygen of publicity on shows like Question Time, now they say the BNP will be subject to rigorous scrutiny on those same shows."

The Question Time production team was accused of going out of its way to make the show confrontational and controversial.

There are claims the studio audience was hand-picked in advance, not only to provide a cross-section of multicultural Londoners, but to include people likely to ask Griffin difficult questions, such as the Jewish schoolboy Joel Weiner and Khush Klare, the financial services director of Indian descent who drew loud cheers when he asked the BNP leader: "Where would you like me to go? I was born in this country. I love this country."

Producers were accused of abandoning the usual wide-ranging format of the programme and choosing instead questions designed to highlight the BNP's policies on race. Others were instructed to make their questions "short, sharp and confrontational" – with the word confrontational underlined on their crib sheet.

The panel members, Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary; Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the shadow minister for community cohesion; Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman; and Bonnie Greer, the playwright and broadcaster, were accused of ganging up on Mr Griffin.

But Gavin Allen, Question Time's executive editor, said the format was no different to any other episode and the subject of the questions was dictated by the audience itself.

"In all the core elements, it was Question Time as normal," he said. "The key manner in which this was Question Time as normal is that it was unpredictable. Week in, week out, none of us involved in the programme has any idea how the audience will react, what will anger or amuse them, whether this or that panellist will shine or sink."

The result, in terms of headlines and viewing figures, will have delighted Mentorn's directors. The firm is a significant player in the industry, producing award-winning dramas such as Britz and the Hamburg Cell, as well as BBC One's Panorama and Channel 4's Dispatches.

However, it was not clear what Dimbleby thought. Although he has long worked closely with Mentorn and has chosen not to comment on the decision in public, Dimbleby told colleagues he "understands the case against having the BNP on the panel".

For her part Ms Greer defended her decision to appear alongside Mr Griffin. She said: "The Left has become too smug, too complacent, too trusting in its own insular view of the world. Anyone who does not accept its outlook is too often ridiculed or simply ignored.

"The refusal by too many on the Left to allow air time to what are rightly considered to be disgusting, abhorrent views only allow those views to cloak themselves in a kind of self-righteous martyrdom. They become censored, mysterious, points of campaign and anger. Democracy can never flourish in the dark."

Griffin's appearance is now being regarded as a watershed, with fears that it will pave the way for the routine inclusion of BNP representatives on other BBC shows, at both local and national level, such as Radio 4's Any Questions.

The BBC's critics argue the show gave Griffin a priceless opportunity to exploit, on prime time television, the anxieties about immigration and cultural change which undoubtedly exist in Britain.

Despite his numerous gaffes – failing to explain his Holocaust denial, describing the racist Ku Klux Klan as "non-violent", attacking on gays and Islam – many viewers will have been left with the impression that he is now part of the respectable mainstream.

Diane Abbott, Britain's first black woman MP, said: "What people will remember was that last Thursday was indeed 'BNP day' and the party and its views were somehow accepted into the mainstream."

James Macintyre, a former Question Time producer and now political correspondent for the New Statesman current affairs magazine, said: "Dimbleby and audience members did force some moments of embarrassment, but symbolically the damage is done: there he was in his suit, tie and poppy, on a panel alongside a Cabinet minister and the best presenter in the business, gaining false respectability. The taboo of voting BNP has been lifted."

Among the hundreds gathered outside the BBC's Television Centre in White City on Thursday night to protest against Griffin's appearance was Monty Goldman, whose father fought against Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts in the Battle of Cable Street, in 1936.

While his mother took Monty, then aged four, to a café in nearby Whitechapel for his tea, Sydney Goldman joined his comrades in the ex-servicemen's contingent to physically bar Mosley's fascists from marching through a predominantly Jewish area.

Mr Goldman, now 78, white-haired and a career as an accountant behind him, jabbed a finger at the building inside which the BNP's 'chairman' was holding forth.

"I oppose the BNP not because they are against my own political beliefs, but because what they stand for and would impose on all of us is vile," explained Mr Goldman. "Griffin is worse than Mosley. Not only is he a fascist, but he also denies the existence of the Holocaust.

"If this were Austria he would be arrested and imprisoned for that, instead of being invited to spout his hatred at licence tax payers' expense. The BBC should be ashamed it allowed itself to be used like this."