How nice to see the BNP at last getting the chance to participate in the question time programme.
I thought our spokesman came across very well and his question was well put to the panel.
Maybe this is the BBC showing it can be less PC and to give the smaller parties there chance to debate with the big boys.
And to get the very first question on the programme was very good to see,things are looking up I hope.:thumbsup:

Seems i missed this, I would have liked to have viewed this.

Do you know if it will be repeated?

In fact , I think it would be a good thing for democracy if the BBC , on Radio and Television , gave a fair amount of time each week to EVERY political party who got over X number of votes at local , Euro and General elections .
It wouldn't need a brain surgeon to work out time allowed , based on a proportion of votes .The speakers could be , "tied "to a topic or just speak about what they wished as long as it was within the law .
At least then , the people of the U.K. would have a chance to hear from EVERY political party . It might not be perfect and , no doubt , it could be fine-honed but probably better than the rather slapdash system we have at the moment where you only hear from the mainstream parties , 95 % of the time , and for whom only about 60% actually voted . It might even spark off an interest in politics again and after all , ALL viewers have to cough up a licence fee .

He was just a member of the audience - there was no reason for him to say he was BNP.

Sorry i misread the original post. I thought you said that the BNP member was actually in the panel. No worries.

Yes of course he was only a member of the audience but this is the first time I think that ANY BNP person has been permited to have their say on this programme.
I think if you go to the BBC website you can view the entire programme again Spyro,I think this is the media accepting that the small parties ought to be able to have their say as well as the big boys, Time will tell.;)
Lol we wont get any one on to the panel,that would be asking far too much of the BBC.:thumbsup:

Originally posted by royjames
Yes of course he was only a member of the audience but this is the first time I think that ANY BNP person has been permited to have their say on this programme.
I think if you go to the BBC website you can view the entire programme again Spyro,I think this is the media accepting that the small parties ought to be able to have their say as well as the big boys, Time will tell.;)
Lol we wont get any one on to the panel,that would be asking far too much of the BBC.:thumbsup:

Well i think that the BNP should be allowed on to the panel, I would certainly like to see that, and I do feel that although I personally am not a fan of the BNP, they should be able to have their say and let people hear their stance and ask questions. its only fair.

Watch again on this page. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/4264586.stm#)

I am with Spyro on this 100%. The BNP are a political party, whether one likes it or not, and they should be accorded the same equality of opportunity [to coin a left-wing cliche] to express their political views as every other party. Let the public decide for themselves whether or not to vote BNP, rather than this silly situation of keeping 'the bad boys' at arms length. I have seen dyed-in-the-wool, revolutionary Marxists like Arthur Scargill take part in BBC Question Time. Is the policy, 'left wing extremists= good', 'right-wing extremists=bad'? If so, the policy is deeply unfair to both the public and the party.

The general public are debating issues around race and immigration. The major political parties [like my own Conservatives] are not getting to grips with the level of fear and resentment around the issues. Many suspect their motives, but none can deny that the BNP are at least willing to debate the subject, 'gloves off', so to speak. Let us hear what they have to say, at least...

Originally posted by royjames
Yes of course he was only a member of the audience but this is the first time I think that ANY BNP person has been permited to have their say on this programme.

Hmm, well the skinhead sat behind me at the Sheffield QT didn't look like he was a leftie pinko do-gooder judging by the death or glory tattoo and dockers under skin tight jeans.

He got a question on.

You sure about your information royjames?

You sure about him being BNP Tony? But then again your making assumptions about someone Tony;)
I hope that we can get someone on to the question time panel but I wont hold my breath on it,I agree with Timo in that its one law for those on the so called far left and another for those on the so called far right.
Still its a start so we will just have to wait and see wont we.

Originally posted by royjames
You sure about him being BNP Tony? But then again your making assumptions about someone Tony;)

I didn't say he was royjames, but I was making the point that all sorts of allegiances are taken into account when selecting questions for QT - I've seen it! The BBC seem to try quite hard to get a fair representation onto the program.

Judging from the Nazi SS tattoos I think Combat 18 was probably more his style. You know them, the guys that provide 'security services' for the BNP. ;)

Originally posted by Tony
Hmm, well the skinhead sat behind me at the Sheffield QT didn't look like he was a leftie pinko do-gooder judging by the death or glory tattoo and dockers under skin tight jeans.


Hi tony,
I know that you are omniscient, being Co-admin, but that sounds a little harsh to me.

Rock Punk and Skinhead people often look menacing to the outsider, but are mostly lovely people when you get to speak to them. I don't know what this particular bloke looked like or sounded like, but I know that my mum would have been a bit scared at the motorcycle rally some of us were at last week.

And isn't "Death or Glory" the motto of one of the British army regiments, maybe he used to be a soldier.

So what was the all important question this political trendsetter asked?

I can't remember for the life of me.

Originally posted by Tony
I can't remember for the life of me.

lol truly groundbreaking stuff then ;)

Oh come on now Tony,you really think the audience at question time are representative of the people:loopy:
We must be watching different programme,they audience are left wing liberals and you very rarely get the right wing view and I mean the real right wing view .
Tell you what I will try to get on question time and I will let you know how I get on.;)
As to c 18 I dont know what you mean about them?? Security is needed to protect us from the UAF and asorted thugs.

I'm no great connoisseur of these things, but that particular skulls head logo (http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38380000/jpg/_38380985_combat18_150.jpg) is one that you tend to remember eh? It's not one that you get by accident is it?

You can quite happily compare it (http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=ss+skull&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&rls=SNYD,SNYD:2004-33,SNYD:en&start=0&sa=N) to a whole range of others.



Anyway, this is hardly the point of the thread is it?

royjames, the audience that I saw certainly appeared to be quite broad, and the application made great pains to extract political allegiances down to the last vote you made. The intro from the producers and Dimbleby also made note of this. Sorry if you don't believe it, but the BBC isn't a one agenda organisation - as the recent 5 Live report indicated in another thread.

Mind you - you think that I'm a leftie and that SF is run by lefties don't you?

Originally posted by muddycoffee
Hi tony,
I know that you are omniscient, being Co-admin, but that sounds a little harsh to me.

Rock Punk and Skinhead people often look menacing to the outsider, but are mostly lovely people when you get to speak to them. I don't know what this particular bloke looked like or sounded like, but I know that my mum would have been a bit scared at the motorcycle rally some of us were at last week.

And isn't "Death or Glory" the motto of one of the British army regiments, maybe he used to be a soldier.

Muddycoffee, I must agree and back you up here.

It's a popular misconception that people described by Tony are extreme right wing and have a race agenda. In my opinion nothing can be more from the truth.

Show me a boy with a skinhead, fred perry shirt, tight jeans and docks and I think punk. I think somebody who probably is into 2 tone, or a scooterboy. Genres of music that broke down barriers between between black and white and moulded them as one.

I just find it sad that people dressing this way today are viewed as racist. More likely they were the one's pushing for race equality in the first place.

It's just ignorant people who stereotype and put them in a bracket.

Yawn... I'm generally the last person to succumb to a stereotype I'm afraid. Please re-read what I posted.

When combined with Nazi style tattoos, it tends to give the game away.

I think you are certainly hostile to our party Tony,your history of posting tells everyone that,as to sheff forum I have said it is left of centre which I think most will agree with.
Now like you said this is not on topic so we ought to get back on track.
The question asked was about Iraq and it got broad support from the audience, shows we are in tune with most of the public I think.

What it shows Roy is that you latch on to something / anything to suit the parties power aspirations.

I'm not hostile to your party - just racists and bigots.

Sorry Tony, but to me it's a skull and crossbones type of tat...similar to that many a biker may have, but I'm sure they didnt want to be called racist either.

But to claify, my point was only that people shouldn't be judged by how they look.

Also, for the record I think the party Roy stands for is complete scum. He's dead celever at coming across all reasonable though....top tip roy, nobody buys it.

Originally posted by royjames
We must be watching different programme,they audience are left wing liberals and you very rarely get the right wing view and I mean the real right wing view.

I think this may be a conceptual thing - if everyone to the political left of you is a left wing liberal that would cover probably 99+ % of the population of the UK! This is probably the reason why you find the forum to be left of centre - as a (roughly) centre left liberal myself I find it increasingly right wing...

Just curious Royjames, and making no judgments here, would you be happy to see Question Time used as a platform for rabid extremist Muslim Imans to reach their audience? I'm interested to know the extent of your desire for true freedom of speech.

I seem to be called "left" a lot by BNP supporters, to be honest I don't know (or care) what it means, I just know I'm right ;)

oh apparently I'm some pinko lefty commie type according tom Roy:loopy:

I am very happyu for the BNP to have a say as long as they will listen and take the response they get back

Originally posted by robbie
I am very happyu for the BNP to have a say as long as they will listen and take the response they get back

It would be nice if ANY political party/politician did that!

It seems to me that the only party who don't want a wide range of questioners are the Government party.

It was interesting what Kennedy said in his leader's speech at the Liberal conference the other day. About the amount of votes which are required to elect a member of his party to MP, compared with a Labour one. It must be exactly the same for all the smaller parties.

It would be much more interesting and healthy if more minority parties were brought into the equation by PR or whatever method. Or we will carry on getting Governments which stay in with massive majorities, steamrolling through bad legislation. If there was a few BNP, Green and monster raving loony people, they would give attention to issues which the stuffy established MPs would not dare to.

Likewise on Questiontime, the Conservatives are totally ineffective at the present time, and as the official opposition party, their seat is a bit of a waste on a programme like this. Much more interesting if you get someone like Peter Hichens or George Gallaway or a BNP or Green representative on instead.

Originally posted by royjames
The question asked was about Iraq and it got broad support from the audience, shows we are in tune with most of the public I think.

Hi Roy.

I missed this programme, but I'm glad your party was able to ask a question. Everybody has a right to express their views.

Can you tell me what the question was?

Like I said the question was about Iraq and our man said we ought to pull out right now.
As to the question of the smaller parties getting their say I think it will invigorate politics,it will show the people the alternative view on certain subjects.
Mind you it wont happen as the big 3 wont hear of it,cant have anyone who threatens their stranglehold on the media .

Originally posted by timo
I am with Spyro on this 100%. The BNP are a political party, whether one likes it or not, and they should be accorded the same equality of opportunity [to coin a left-wing cliche] to express their political views as every other party. Let the public decide for themselves whether or not to vote BNP, rather than this silly situation of keeping 'the bad boys' at arms length.

This is something I agree with too, Timo...

Someone was saying about the news being biased in the US - does the censorship of any other political party mean that we are exactly the same?

I can't say I agree with the policies of the BNP for a minute, but I defend their right to state them.

Its rather an interesting notion that people seem to have that everyone in this country has the right to state their political beliefs.

This is absolutely untrue.

For a start there are blasphemy laws, and may soon be, of course "incitement" to religious hatred too.

back on the main topic on this thread, someone from the BNP asked a question on television, hardly earth shattering is it?