“The Feeling … is mutual”

So it happened.  And the world is still very much not undergoing an apocalypse.  Yet.

What happened was that the rather irate man from that “political party” appeared on the BBC’s Question Time programme.  In all honesty, I am not a regular viewer; I only go as far as occasionally listening to the counterpart programme “Any Questions?” on BBC Radio 4.  But TweetDeck had been consistently beeping new messages with the hashtag “#bbcqt” all day (it’s a Twitter thing: Google it), so I watched the entire thing.  Here are my initial thoughts.

To begin with, although I know this is beside the point, it was perhaps a little dry.  By that I mean, very focussed, no lightness and without a lot of character.  Granted, it’s not fair to compare it to this clip, for exmple: http://bit.ly/fGVxT, and it’s important to bear in mind the subject matter and the nature of the guests.

The panel: Jack Straw, Justice Minister in the Labour Government; Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion; Chris Huhne, Lib. Dem. Home Affairs Spokesman; Bonnie Greer, playwright and Deputy Chairman of the British Museum and Nick Griffin from that party with the people who have the views on the other thing.  David “My-name-is-David-not-Jonathan-that’s-my-brother” Dimbleby chaired the debate well, pressing the panel members on specifics, whilst managing to maintain some level of BBC-impartiality.

It has to be said, “straight off the bat” as you might say, that in many ways, the focus was very much positioned on the  BNP and their ideas.  By that, I don’t mean that there was too much discussion of BNP policies.  Why not adopt that focus?  In fact, if a member of said party is to appear (the debate over which will not be tackled here – once again, Google it: it’s a big discussion), then it seems to me to be entirely worthwhile to take the opportunity to expose the truth of the representative’s opinions, to ensure everyone watching knows who we are dealing with.  The line the questioning took (if we ignore, for a moment, the contribution of the non-BNP panel members, and just look at the audience) was to attempt to pick apart BNP ideas, challenge their veracity and expose a hidden agenda.

The trouble there, is that it perhaps lacked teeth.  This article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/22/nick-griffin-question-time-debate) points very well to what the panel and audience were trying to do, but partially failed at.  I don’t think (though I may have already forgotten : ) ) that the “facade broke down” under some of the more pedestrian lines of attack.  The classic weaseling out of direct quotes, and attempting to present a moderate face of the party, were both tactics that were heavily deployed.  There were, however, particular moments when the ugly side was visible.  Take, for example, the pressing of Griffin on the definition of indigenous and whether he equates that with “white”.  As well as the obviously absurd view of British history which he presented, there was also a moment (though I don’t have the exact quote) in which he did equate indigenous to white, though in passing and it was not picked up.  I could attempt to fully outline every absurd/incorrect/racist comment to be found in the debate, but, at this point, it’s fairly obvious and the footage pretty much speaks for itself.

I would, on another point, like to look at some of the other panelists.  For a start, Jack Straw (who I always remember as bespectacled, from when I watched the news when I lived in the UK), seemed pretty indignant.  To be fair, all the panelists were to some extent or another, but he managed it with a minimum of facial expression, looking straight forward, and conveying it all with the tone of his voice.  An interesting style.  It’s funny, because I have found myself becoming increasingly annoyed with the New Labour policies and presentational style, over the past ten years, but (perhaps partly due to the looming prospect of a Conservative Government being elected, soonish) I was surprised by how little Jack Straw annoyed me.  In fact, I found myself a little on his side.  This became especially apparent when the discussion moved to immigration.

The question (paraphrased) was whether the rise of the BNP can be blamed on the failure of the (Labour) Government’s immigration policy.  Unsurprisingly, Jack Straw (who was first to answer) said no.  I honestly cannot attest to the government having failed in its immigration policy.  The fact that I don’t live in the UK is also of little relevance, given that anecdotal evidence on the effect of immigration on communities is not always useful for looking at the big picture.  What stood out most prominently, was the answer from the Conservative, Sayeeda Warsi.  She accused Straw of dishonesty, yet, herself, used the Conservative tactic of playing on fear of immigration as an issue without actually presenting “solutions”.  The idea is that the “moderate” right wing can raise the spectre of immigration to bring aboard the UKIPs of this world, but avoid moving too far to the right by never being explicit (e.g.) on how  ”caps” would really be implemented.  The approach was based on the concept of community resources (I suppose doctors, schools, transport infrastructure) being unable to cope with a large influx of people from the EU, and from further afield.  As I have already said, I don’t know if this is the case, it could be, but that’s beside the point.  The way Sayaeeda Warsi argued the case, made it appear that, once again, the Tories want to claim immigration as “their issue” in that “they will Keep You Safe”.  Perhaps that’s unfair.  Even bigoted.  But she will apparently demand that Straw engaged in an “honest debate”, until he agrees with her.  Which, by the way, is not what either of them wants, given that the strategy of the Labour and Conservative Parties has been attempting (with varying degrees of success) to cast themselves as the party which is the best tackle the issue, not the one with the best policies to tackle the issue.

Regarding the other two members of the panel, Chris Huhne and Bonnie Greer, I think they generally came across best.  I particularly liked the manner in which Bonnie Greer would ostensibly aim a question at Griffin (sitting next to her) to get confirmation on one of his opinions, and then immediately continue without bothering to wait for one of his insane answers.  It’s the most efficient use of the time available (which, incidentally, the programme quickly ran out of). Anyway, back to the debate.

In my opinion, the time when the discussion came closest to completely demolishing the facade Griffin would have you believe in, was when the programme moved to a more “traditional” Question Time format.  The final question was the only truely topical one, and focussed on an article by Jan Moir in the Daily Mail on the death of Stephen Gately.  Every panelist came across as reasonable and fair (balancing freedom of speech and human decency).  Except Griffin, who very much didn’t.  And the comment from the audience member who is in a civil partnership (the final comment of that segment) did in only a few words best refute the ideals of Griffin’s party.

The debate closed with a “meta” discussion, about the debate itself and whether the BBC was right to proceed with the scheduled panel.  My only point here, is that I think Sayeeda Warsi gave herself and her fellow panel members a little too much credit in having “exposed” the BNP for who they really are.  More needs to be done.  I think James Dray was right, when he said that Griffin will not “politically hang himself if merely given enough rope”.  The reason we’re in this position is because enough people voted.  And given the apathy with which the public usually approaches political involvement, this is not a problem that will be solved with one TV programme.

(Sorry for the rambling nature of this post – I evidently haven’t really ordered my thoughts yet.)

News 2.0: Because yesterday’s newscasts didn’t jump out of the TV and demand your undivided attention

I read an absurd story (here) today about how CNN will use advanced holographic technology to present election night coverage, allowing Obama and McCain strategists to appear to be in a room with Wolf Blitzer, when they are really in two separate cities.  This will either be remarkably cool, or bafflingly pointless.  We will find out.  One thing I do certainly find cool, though, is MSNBC peddling of what it calls ‘Newsware’.  This is not new (it started earlier this year), but today I very briefly tried out the ‘Spectra’ web browser-based news visualiser, and the ‘NewsSkimmer’ news screensaver.  They are both rather impressive, with nifty 3D animations, and, thankfully, a very minimalist and generally well-designed look.  Unfortunately, my 1.67 GHz G4 PowerBook, with 512 MB memory, isn’t fast enough to play the animations smoothly, but its still rather nice.  More info, and free downloads, at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23781733/