QT: Griffin v Straw v ?
It’s no exaggeration to say that the most anticipated Question Time of the year will be the one featuring Nick Griffin MEP on 22nd October. Fraser Nelson, who acquitted himself quite reasonably in last Thursday’s QT tourney, runs with news on the Spectator site that Labour are abandoning their previous stance of empty-chairing the BNP and will be putting up Jack Straw.
Straw will be a nervous constituency MP, considering his narrow majority, and so will be very happy to have a place at the table for what will be the most watched programme of the scheduled QT run. As Fraser Nelson says:
Great news for the BNP. Labour should have sent a street fighter, not a desk general. Jon Cruddas is far and away the best BNP baiter in the Labour party, touring Dagenham council houses and talking voters out of supporting Griffin’s party. Straw has in the past been accused of bending brutish foreign policy to assuage Muslims in his Blackburn constituency, and the closest he gets to BNP fighting is writing pieces for his local newspaper telling Muslims not to wear the veil when visiting him in his constituency office.
The speculation will now centre on who is put up by the two main parties and the other one, and Nelson ponders:
Odds are that Michael Gove will be the Tory choice – the logic being that his formidable debating skills compensate for his abject lack of experience – but he hardly carries war wounds from the ghettoes of Surrey Heath. The Lib Dems will probably put up Sarah Teather. The QT editors do not choose the party people, but will probably select two others. Shami and Sir Andrew Green? We will soon see.
TheEye thinks that this would smack of the BBC playing the man, not the ball. Although we are used to seeing a lone Tory thrown to the wolves of a lefty panel (and we are sometimes reduced to playing Spot-The-Righty at all) these other suggestions would be complete panel-rigging to artifically generate a single-issue debate. Would it be too much to ask for a rational reasonable QT where a range of interesting panelists were asked a range of interesting questions to elicit, shock horror, a range of interesting opinions?
Actually, it would be too much to ask as it never happens anyway. To remind you, All Seeing Eye co-contributor David Vance will be presiding over the regular QT livechat on Biased-BBC which runs in real time alongside Question Time, and your humble Eye will be assisting David with the livechat moderation. There are rumours that co-contributor G.O.T. (he of the great logo above) may even join us so come along and join the fun!
And one final appeal: there is bound to be a stage invasion and protest by some student types. When there is, the Biased-BBC livebloggers insist on decent-looking naked totty, please. No men, or women with beards. Thanks in advance…
It will probably be a repeat of that disgusting post 9/11 QT when the US Ambassador was assailed by a bussed in group of ranting muslims. I wouldn’t put it past Al Beeb.
Is it not entirely possible that the massed gathering of anti-Fascists, communist freedom fighters and jihadists that Griffin will attract to the venue wil prevent the show from going on? Either a bunch of them will get inside and not allow any debate to happen, or a riot will break out outside resulting in a total cancellation on elfin safety grounds.
I reckon that Labour will make sure that the UAF turns up in force rather than than the naked student totty, Eye.
And there I was clutching at the faintest ray of hope, only for you to bring reality back into play. Curses. But you are right, and there will be trouble.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the event (which is slightly pre-recorded anyway) is shifted away from the advertised location to one with a vetted audience in the hope that noone finds out until it’s too late. Otherwise we’re going to be seeing policemen on horses and tear-gas, I suspect – and where is the democracy and free-speech in that?
I remember that one. Sickening. I bet all the tickets for this one have been divided up already – earmarked for ‘special interest groups’.
Yes, organised trouble on behalf of ‘the public’ I imagine, great to live in a democracy isn’t it?
Jack Straw won’t answer anything as he will be too busy stuttering, Dimblesnore will try and make witty comments and the BNP rep. will be shouted down at every opportunity.
This will be a liveblog to remember and hopefully, not too many munters.
This is clearly going to be very ugly. The ultra reds just won’t let this happen. Remember the attack of a couple of months ago when Griffin tried to make a speech close to Parliament Square. And what happened when Robert Kilroy Silk turned up to take part in QT?