The ghastly Nick Griffin of the UK's horrid little skinhead rascist party caused a small firestorm today.
He was on the BBC panel of Question Time tonight for the first time.
Tempers flared.
He had to be escorted in via the back door. Policemen were injured in the melee. It's all over the front pages and TV.
Front pages tomorrow include 'Bigot at Bay' and worse, or better from my point of view.
Link to the BBC web site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
I've tried to embed video but it won't let me. It is at the link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
This item states that Question time could not happen in the US, not sure I agree with that premise.
There is something very British about Question Time.
Having just spent a sabbatical year in Washington - where politicians are in the most part astonishingly remote from their electorate - I am reminded that the programme represents a major investment in the democratic process by our political class.
My American colleagues - some of them aides to top US politicians - would watch DVDs of the show in near disbelief, open mouthed.
This could never happen in the US, they would say, none of the senior politicians would be willing to mix with voters in prime time.
Youtube
Yet back in the UK, that is exactly what happens, week after week.
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
A British Asian man was applauded when he accused Griffin of wanting to hound him out of Britain. "You'd be surprised how many people would have a whip-round to buy you a ticket and your supporters to go to the South Pole," he told Griffin. "It is a colourless landscape that will suit you fine."
Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, told the programme: "We had this in the 1930s against the Jews, in the 1960s against the blacks. And now Nick Griffin is playing the same old game; hatred and fear peddling against a minority that has to defend itself. Churchill would be rolling in his grave."
In a sign of the BBC's determination to put pressure on Griffin, Dimbleby held up a picture of the BNP with the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Griffin said Duke was a non-violent figure, who regards him as a sellout, prompting laughter and anger from the audience
It would be putting it mildly to say there was almost universal outrage here. I'm quite proud of us.