Griffin on Question Time

How did he do?  My view is that

• It was a significant error on the part of the BBC to devote so much of the programme to the BNP. Just because the BNP had to be on didn't mean there had to be a whole show devoted to questions about the BNP.  He was entitled to be on, and the rest of us were entitled to hear his views on bankers bonuses, on MP expenses, on Gordon Brown's biscuit problems, on whether the banks should be broken up, and so on.  He was either on there as part of the normal process or he wasn't.  If he was only there as part of the normal process, as the BBC insisted, then it should have been a normal show.

• He did best when his opponents ranted about him, and they were occasionally blatantly unreasonable, giving him good lines that they didn't need to give him.  It's just true that none of the others on that panel would object to Maoris being termed "indigenous people" - even though they have been in New Zealand for less than 1,000 years - and similarly just true that none of the others on the panel would object to the Sioux being termed an indigenous people of North America.  And even if the numbers of "pure" Maoris or Sioux are actually tiny, none of the others on the panel would contend that "it makes no sense" to talk of indigenous peoples in those cases.  So why should it make no sense to talk of the indigenous people of the British Isles?  Why did they attempt to dispute that there was a coherent concept there?

• Doubtless people have a strong basis for claiming that Nick Griffin is a racist in charge of a racist party.  But even if he is a racist, that does not mean that everything he says is racist.  And there is a genuine difference between favouring the indigenous people of Britain and favouring whites.  For example, someone favouring the indigenous people of Britain will not feel the same about ethnic Britons as about ethnic Germans or Italians or Swedes.  Attempting to twist his statements about favouring indigenous Britons into statements about favouring whites looked every bit as devious as Griffin's attempts to justify his preaching to KKK members.

• I was astonished at Baroness Warsi's attempt to suggest there was something improper about Griffin's using the term "bogus asylum-seeker".  My guess is that by noon tomorrow some kind person will have blogged links to about 40 quotes from senior Conservative politicians between 1995 and 2005 in which the term "bogus asylum-seeker" featured prominently.  That was just ridiculous and amateurish.

• Grant Griffin his statements when on face value they are reasonable, then, if you disagree with them (as you often will) dispute what he actually said rather than the wacko thing you think he'd like to have said.  He'll soon enough come up with genuinely wacko things for you to leap upon, but if you let matters get bogged down in him defending his right to make perfectly reasonable (if mistaken) claims, he wins.  As he did at least thrice this evening.

• I thought he looked nervous and inexperienced, and was often outshone by much more polished professionals with vastly more experience on such shows.  But you should not over-estimate how bad that makes him look, and you should not under-estimate how quickly he will learn.  He was in an enormously hostile environment, and many viewers will have had, at a human level, a sneaking sympathy - that British thing of favouring the underdog.

• He of course had to contend with some pretty embarrassing quotes from the past.  But Tony Blair didn't suffer too much when people quoted his past positions on nuclear disarmament.  And other politicians have baggage they've had to throw off.  The public is used to that.  Attacking him on old quotes actually made it seem as if he'd moved a very long way.  Again, I think you should not over-estimate how much he will suffer from that.

• I noted that he appeared to have gone onto the show with a specific strategy of being particularly gracious about anything said to him by a member of an ethnic minority, to smile at almost anything Bonnie Greer said (albeit to somewhat crazed excess) and to laugh at any insults he received.  He was pretty disciplined in pursuing that strategy (it probably helped that he was excited to be there at a personal level).

• Overall, I think it was pretty clear by the end of the show that, as yet at least, Griffin is not a politician in the same league as those from the main parties - he lacks their polish and he is far too vulnerable both in terms of history and outbursts.  But the main parties still insist on being unreasonable in precisely the dimensions that encourage BNP sympathy and support.  When he says something reasonable, agree or disagree.  Don't try to twist his statements into something crazy or evil if they don't come with those features themselves.