Crusty Botches of Nature. Apologies to Shakespeare.

Nick Griffin must be rubbing his chubby belly with glee.

He came off rather well, I thought, on his interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 tonight - making points he wanted to make without much heed to the actual questions, calling James Bethel a "Tory Toff" and referring to Jon Snow as "Peter". A pretty slick performance, but what would anyone expect?

Being slick is what Griffin is all about, surely? And leaving this pointless little roly-poly racist aside, I'm finding I am less perturbed by the BNP itself than by people's reaction to them.

The BNP have, for example, nabbed the Battle of Britain and are promoting it as a nifty little advantageous association with their own political fundament. Naturally, and rightly so, veterans and representatives of British Armed Forces are Not Happy. So there is now a video from the protest group "Nothing British About The BNP" to make their well-justified point. But I don't know. The video is strangely soft-hitting. It reminds us how horrid it is to be at war. It has an atmosphere of sorrowful resignation, and a very odd choice of sober piano running throughout. Sad and sober is wrong, all wrong. Shouldn't we all be spitting chips?

As for whether it will work, I guess that depends who it is aimed at. But who is that then?
Who still needs to be told they are a party of oddly-shaped fascist yobbos, who have all simply upgraded their bova boots to laptops? The dull berks who might vote for them, come election time, I suppose? And if that is so, will a video like this, with its carefully thought out subtleties, really work? Wouldn't it better to have Ray Winston leaning into the TV screen and jabbing a squat finger, while growling "Don't vote for them, moron; they are right little s**ts"?

To clarify, and I really have to, just in case, I am NO fan of the BNP. Of course not. It is a nasty little example of segregational thuggery which will always attract a certain amount of support, from a certain section of society. Any society. "But, like, it's not fair that they come over 'ere and take our jobs like..." mumbled an Barnsley example today on TV, with a long vacant stare, suggestive of a true Non-Thinker. But there's nothing particularly British about that - the same happens all over the world. You will always get your fatuous fascist fringes, wherever you are. In the same way that you will always find someone who thinks eating carrots is homicide.

But now the papers are all jumping on board the big Countdown To Question Time. The Church is condemning it, and various ethnic groups echo. I understand why they have to, I really do, but it just all seems like such pretty publicity for an undeserving bunch of often vicious boneheads.

Engineered properly, and Question Time could prove to be a real thorn in their ruffian side. We all know that they have a legal right to say what they want to say, whether we like it or not. And if we want to discount anyone's views properly and honestly, it is always useful to hear what they are. Given enough carefully designed rope, I'm sure the BNP could quite easily hang themselves. It could be very interesting. But I bet, on Thursday, emotion takes over. I bet it turns out to be all about the demonstrators outside. And I bet there'll be so much noise of protest that people will forget to hear what a stinking lot of sewer-bile these people really preach.

I'm not trying to be political, incidentally. Am really just thinking aloud.


(Afterthought)
I do hope they bring up the David Duke video. I do hope someone asks him what the hell he meant by that. It's available on you tube, and worth seeing for true horror, but I'm not putting it up here as I don't want those botches of nature polluting my blog.