Mr. Griffin Goes To London

I decided to do an entry about Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time about three minutes after the programme started. Interesting to see how well it leads on from Telf's entry directly before this one. As the show is still very much in full swing, I'll give some of my observations thusfar in bullet point form:

• As I expected, the BBC has made sure it is well-armed to make sure those who are outraged at Nick Griffin's appearance on the show are somewhat appeased and not given further ammunition against the BBC. Griffin almost immediately began declaring himself as a person wronged on a number of fronts, in particular by the papers and by other political parties. I'm glad that the shows researchers have given David Dimbleby an arsenal of quotations by Griffin that he can't dispute.
• To my mind, Nick Griffin seems like a fairly unintelligent man, but not too bad a politician. His evidence is continually coming from flimsy or vague sources (such as "many scientists" and "online" to name two that have come from Griffin in the last ten minutes). He is very able, however, when faced with a point or a question which he doesn't want to directly answer or tackle, to respond with an attack on another party to deflect the attention away from his own views.
  
• I'm glad that some time has been dedicated to showing Nick Griffin, and the BNP as a whole, as a fairly loose example of a political party that is roundly disliked by the the vast majority of people in the studio, both panellists and audience. As expected, a few members of the audience are there in support of Griffin and his organisation, but this just serves to show that things are not being presented in a totally one-sided way.
• I'm glad that a significant portion of the show has been given over to other topical issues, such as the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately, and points which are directly questioning or criticising the other parties that are present.
• Bonnie Greer seems like a wonderful and intelligent woman who I'd like to find out a lot more about.
• Griffin is being asked about all the issues coming up throughout the show, and so is truly being treated as a panellist and not a punchbag. In my opinion, he's not holding up well, either seeming vague on the issues being presented or simply just riling many people further with needlessly agressive views.
• Overall, after seeing the show, I'm glad Nick Griffin was allowed on. He was given an equal standing from the start and allowed to argue his way down from that level by himself throughout. True, he was criticised a great deal, but he also offered out a fair amount of criticism , and so to me it never seemed like an unfair situation. Basically, Griffin came across as the blinkered idiot he is, who just happens to know how to twist a conversation.
  
• BBC One must be wetting themselves over their viewing figures this evening.
  
• Political debate? For the most part. Putting Griffin in the stocks? Not as far as I can see. Publicity stunt? Definitely.

That might be a bit all over the place, so I may follow up with a more structured entry tomorrow. But hopefully that's got across my take on the event at the time/soon after it happened.