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Oct. 22nd, 2009 10:29 amI’ll admit to some concern about tonight’s edition of Question Pit. Far too many people will not listen to a single grandstanding word (and why would you? I can never bring myself to watch the thing; it’s twice the length of Prime Minister’s Questions, with everyone displaying the same sanctimony and tedious rhetorical tics, but devoid of the already scant information that gets communicated then), but will simply see that at last the BNP have been taken seriously. And many of the BNP’s newly targeted constituency will wonder why everyone is haranguing the leader of that nice party that’s been campaigning locally and promising to protect old ladies from crime, and suspect all the more that the BNP are right: the liberal intelligentsia really do just hate them.
It may be an article of faith among “right-thinking people” that the BNP are anathema, but to the people the party has been courting so assiduously over the past few years—by seriously downplaying the “send ‘em home” aspect of their platform and stressing the “improving your community” angle—this is not at all clear. It seems to have been assumed within the government that there was never any need to counter the BNP’s claims on the doorsteps of the poor and disenfranchised because, the rising tide having floated all boats, it would be obvious that everyone was benefiting from the government’s munificence and the BNP would therefore find themselves redundant. The odious sanctimony and wretched idiocy of this approach suggest Blair’s steady hand on the tiller, but he won’t have been alone in his cosy Radio 4 assumptions.
Griffin is certainly an idiot, but a canny one. He won’t care that his words are often contradictory or downright meaningless; what’s important is that he gets to rant, wildly accuse and play the victim, usually in the same sentence, and dismiss whatever anyone says back to him. These are effective rhetorical tricks for people not given to, or necessarily capable of, digesting a whole bunch of words at once, while those who already broadly agree with him on ethnic matters would be cheering him on even if he spent the whole hour spinning his chair around, shouting “Wheee!”.
So if you’re going to contradict, dismiss or even mock Griffin to his face, show your working. Don’t let anyone think you’re dismissing him because of the fact that he claims to represent the working class. Don’t let him get you angry; do, however, point out not only where he’s getting basic facts wrong but where he’s actually betraying the very working people he claims to be defending. Don’t take him seriously, but take very seriously the impact that he and his ilk could have.
It would help if Griffin’s opponents were (1) not smarmy and a bit off-putting or (2) just good speakers who tend not to say daft things themselves, so I’m not entirely convinced that Jack Straw (1), Chris Huhne (1), Baroness Warsi (2) or Bonnie Greer (1) are the team to do the job.
EDIT: I am happy to eat my words about Bonnie Greer, although to be fair they were based on many hours of her being far less engaging on endless editions of Newsnight Review. Clearly, to get the best out of her when eliciting her opinions on the latest Ian McEwan novel or whatever, from now on Kirsty Wark should be blacked up. You’re welcome, BBC.
It may be an article of faith among “right-thinking people” that the BNP are anathema, but to the people the party has been courting so assiduously over the past few years—by seriously downplaying the “send ‘em home” aspect of their platform and stressing the “improving your community” angle—this is not at all clear. It seems to have been assumed within the government that there was never any need to counter the BNP’s claims on the doorsteps of the poor and disenfranchised because, the rising tide having floated all boats, it would be obvious that everyone was benefiting from the government’s munificence and the BNP would therefore find themselves redundant. The odious sanctimony and wretched idiocy of this approach suggest Blair’s steady hand on the tiller, but he won’t have been alone in his cosy Radio 4 assumptions.
Griffin is certainly an idiot, but a canny one. He won’t care that his words are often contradictory or downright meaningless; what’s important is that he gets to rant, wildly accuse and play the victim, usually in the same sentence, and dismiss whatever anyone says back to him. These are effective rhetorical tricks for people not given to, or necessarily capable of, digesting a whole bunch of words at once, while those who already broadly agree with him on ethnic matters would be cheering him on even if he spent the whole hour spinning his chair around, shouting “Wheee!”.
So if you’re going to contradict, dismiss or even mock Griffin to his face, show your working. Don’t let anyone think you’re dismissing him because of the fact that he claims to represent the working class. Don’t let him get you angry; do, however, point out not only where he’s getting basic facts wrong but where he’s actually betraying the very working people he claims to be defending. Don’t take him seriously, but take very seriously the impact that he and his ilk could have.
It would help if Griffin’s opponents were (1) not smarmy and a bit off-putting or (2) just good speakers who tend not to say daft things themselves, so I’m not entirely convinced that Jack Straw (1), Chris Huhne (1), Baroness Warsi (2) or Bonnie Greer (1) are the team to do the job.
EDIT: I am happy to eat my words about Bonnie Greer, although to be fair they were based on many hours of her being far less engaging on endless editions of Newsnight Review. Clearly, to get the best out of her when eliciting her opinions on the latest Ian McEwan novel or whatever, from now on Kirsty Wark should be blacked up. You’re welcome, BBC.
