AFTER QUESTION TIME

NICK Griffin was left shaking like a leaf at the end of BBC’s Question Time tonight. After what some might have expected to be a big PR, publicity stunt for the BNP was almost completely the opposite. Auntie should be looking for her receipt, as Mr Griffin was probably not too happy with his Christmas present.

Griffin failed to dispel the notion that his party is racist. He even stated that he believed successive governments had committed genocide towards the ‘indigenous people of Britain’ through immigration policies. His constant flip flopping performance - trying to deny racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and Islamic comments he had previously made – was plain embarrassing to watch.

So has his appearance on Question Time helped to raise the profile of the BNP? I don’t think it has, but we’ll have to wait and see. It might have helped to raise the issue of immigration in Britain as being a topic needing more debate. The appearance of Mr Griffin on QT reminds us once again of the price we pay for democracy. There can be a very fine line between free speech and censorship.

BNP ON TV

TONIGHT, Nick Griffin the leader of the British National Party (BNP) will appear on BBC One’s Question Time. It is the first time that a member of the far right ‘political party’ has been invited and allowed onto the panel.

The decision by the BBC to invite Griffin was a very controversial one. For a start the BNP are about as close to the Nazi party as you can get in British Politics. One of their objectives is to be “committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white make-up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.” You can’t get more racist then that really.

The press and politicians have been trying to argue whether the BNP should be allowed to appear on national television. The right to free speech has been brought into consideration, alongside the want to suppress such controversial and hateful political views. It is a tough decision to make. Do we let such views get suppressed and grow underground? Do we let the views be heard and let them be rubbished and realised for what they are? Or do we risk the views being heard and supported further?

The BNP faces legal challenges about their membership policy and have been heavily criticised with using images of the army in their election campaigns. However illegal the BNP’s methods of selecting members are or however sickening their policies and campaign techniques might be. It might be more important to ask why nearly a million people voted for the BNP at the European elections and why there are now two BNP members in the European Parliament.

Surely this is the bigger and more urgent question to ask rather then whether the BNP should be allowed onto Question Time tonight?

WILL THE VIEW BE THAT GREAT AT THE SUMMIT?

TODAY, David Cameron gave his closing speech at the Conservative Party conference. Against the backdrop of blue skies he announced that it would be a steep climb but the view from the summit would be worth it. He was talking about pulling through the recession but could the phrase be used in relation to the battle for victory at the next election?

The public haven’t really warmed to the Tories yet. The polls put them ahead of Labour, but it is not due to their policies and fundamental party beliefs. It’s more to do with the fact that Cameron is not Gordon Brown. Voters want change but some still probably fear the Tories.

With Cameron’s climb to the economic summit, it will be a lot steeper for some then it will be for others. It can be difficult to believe that ‘we are all in it together’ as George Osborne (shadow chancellor) hammed on in his speech earlier this week. Very difficult when the men who might be leading the country are ex-Etonians, with rather large bank balances. Obviously they wont be feeling the squeeze quite so much as the rest of us.

That’s the end for today, and the end of the conference season. Now the very long road to the general election begins.

BOOMERANG BLAIR

AFTER a week that has been neither good nor bad for Gordon Brown, his old boss has managed to overshadow him once again.

If all goes to plan, Tony Blair the former Prime Minister, could take the new position of European Union President. The Irish public need to vote yes today to the Lisbon Treaty for this to happen. If so within a few weeks Blair could be adding a new job title to his CV.

This is certainly a kick in the teeth for Cameron and the Tories. Just when they thought they were in luck - The Sun, proclaiming earlier this week it has switched alliances to the Tories – Blair comes back to cause trouble. If Blair becomes President of the EU, the Conservatives would have to assess their stance on Europe.

It is quite funny to consider that the next government - be it Labour or most probably Conservative – will have the shadow of New Labour and Tony Blair hanging over it.

WHERE IS BRITAIN’S OBAMA?

ANOTHER week, another storm for the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown’s leadership skills were once again called into question by the media and a number of Labour party heavy weights.

After the furore to get a one to one with US President, Barak Obama at the UN and G20 – which left many pondering the ‘special relationship’ –Brown has ambled on to Brighton and to the Labour Party conference.

It has made me think about the up coming general election next year. Labour seems to be floundering and as Alistair Darling put it, has ‘lost the will to live’. The Conservatives don’t seem to be offering anything new or different apart from ‘savage cuts’, which could possibly worsen the UK’s economy. What choice is there?

Britain needs a change, the public are crying out for it. After the events earlier in the year regarding the MPs expenses scandal, there was a chance for real change and reform in British politics. The public felt disconnected to Westminster and many had lost confidence in their MPs. So far nothing has happened and it looks as though nothing will.

Remember though, It is not just Parliament that needs reform. The gap between rich and poor is the greatest since the 60’s. There need’s to be a tighter grip on the financial system to prevent a repeat of last September. The list could go on.

So it seems Britain is crying out for it’s own Obama, who unfortunately doesn’t seem to exist.

A LITTLE NIBBLE TO KEEP YOU GOING

YES I am back. Two weeks later then promised. I couldn’t even keep to my word of a regular blog each week. Lets forget about the blank spaces and pretend we were all in a coma for a good few days. Good. Frankly I was feeling a little uninspired by the news. It wasn’t as though there were no important stories, it was just I wasn’t gripped by any to investigate further. Not good news for a ‘journo’ in training.

Don’t worry I haven’t been completely uninspired. I have a few ideas I want to develop over the next few weeks. Until then here is a little nibble to suppress you literary hunger.

We are firmly into the annual party political conference season. Kicking off with the Lib Dems. I am sure a vast majority of the population have little, to no idea that this is taking place. It seems that this how politics seems to work in Britain today. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem party leader (apparently a third of voters have never heard of him) announced that the party will need to seriously consider outlining policies on cuts in public spending prior to the election in contrast to previous elections. There are also hints that the vote winning policy of scrapping student tuition fees could be dropped from the next manifesto.

If only tuition fees had been scrapped already. The past few weeks have seen thousands of students wondering if they will be able to go to university at all this term. The government and Student Finance England, have - to put it bluntly - cocked up big time. It is estimated that 50,000 students will be left without finance at the start of the term due to a delay in processing applications. With a phone line that is permanently busy and a Direct Gov website that is constantly useless it’s a case of waiting for the post. We’ll just have to wait around and twiddle our thumbs nervously.

Back to party conference, Clegg makes his key speech tomorrow. We might find out a little more about the party’s direction, if we are lucky.

BACK TO BLOG

FIRST of all, welcome back from the summer and welcome to a slightly refreshed and newly re-named blog.

It has been a bit of a disappointing summer this year. The promised BBQ weather from the Met Office failed to ignite confirming that we now only have two seasons; the rainy, cold season and the very rainy, very cold season.

If you want to try and get a little sun and top up on your vitamin D the only way is to go abroad. It’s no use relying on the good old ‘British Summer’. I myself have just come back from a two-week holiday in Europe and there was something that really stood out to me. It wasn’t the continental café culture, or the slower pace of the Mediterranean lifestyle. It was the amount of large people that I saw. I’m not talking about the odd paunch or bingo wings, I mean the almost obese. Weight has really become an issue.

I’m not trying to write this in an offensive or hurtful way, but the number of really fat people on the beach was shocking. People would sit and eat rubbish purely for sake of having something to do. This really wasn’t an expected sight on a Greek Island.

We, the west are consuming too much food, not only junk food either. It seems wasteful and counterproductive. It’s almost offensive to those in the world who do not have access to the amounts of food that we do.

Not only do we eat too much food we also waste too much as well. According WRAP (a quango who work to reduce waste) we throw out an estimated 6.7 million tons of food in the UK alone. This is a staggering amount and I am sure we are all guilty of throwing good food away. Love Food, Hate Waste, is a website which can give you recipes for left over food in your fridge. It may just be worth taking a look at before you start throwing out the almost off carrots at the bottom of your fridge.

Finally on another note, I must hold my hands up to the fact that I have been very bad at posting on this blog. When I started in 2008 I had intended to add a new entry at least every week. But as you can see from the vast white spaces below this hasn’t really happened. I have decided to set myself the task again, so it’s back to blog and watch this space. Hopefully it will be filled by next week.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIREARMS

LAST week I caught a disturbing report on a change in gun law in Tennessee, America. The change could allow people to take guns into public spaces including restaurants and wait for it – bars.

To me this just shouted out stupidity, surely this was some sort of joke. Lets be honest mixing alcohol with firearms is completely safe and rational, just as drink driving is harmless and has never killed anyone! It doesn’t take the brightest mind to put guns and drink together to work out what could happen on a rowdy Friday night. A misguided comment is all that it could take for the local to turn into a blood bath.

Those in favour of the altered law suggest that it would make their lives safer if they could carry around guns in public spaces. Of course the best way to stop someone murdering your loved one is to pull out a gun on the gunman. The argument supporting the change in law seems to suggest fighting fire with firearms. How a weapon can ever be used in a positive way is beyond me.

To an extent the proposal does not surprise me that much, this is the South of America we are talking about. Many Americans are sickly devoted to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, the 200 year-old right to bear arms. Some estimate that one in four Americans own a gun, which is roughly 76,000,000 people. That is a large number of guns.

All I can say is that I am glad that my constitution does not permit me or my neighbour the right to bear arms (all be it there is no written constitution but that is a completely different minefield).