BBC and BNP: It’s About Ratings?

James Macintyre argues the BBC’s decision to invite the BNP’s Nick Griffin onto Question Time had nothing to do with impartiality or freedom of speech:

The BBC is not being completely honest when it says it is inviting Nick Griffin on to Question Time because the BNP leader was elected as an MEP in June. “By winning representation in the European Parliament, the BNP has demonstrated evidence of electoral support at a national level,” a spokesman has said. “This is not a policy about the BNP. It’s a policy about impartiality.” In fact, the proposal was doing the rounds when I was a producer there more than two years ago. This was long before the BNP’s “breakthrough”, which suggests that the move is, in reality, “about the BNP”.

It was always a ridiculous argument to suggest that they should be allowed air time merely because they’d achieved representative office – would the BBC allow them a party political broadcast advocating the drowning of African immigrants? I saw an excellent suggestion on Twitter the other day, that the other parties taking place in the broadcast should all field non-white participants, but it remains to be seen whether or not the BBC has the editorial savvy needed to prevent the BNP using its prime-time appearance as either a bully pulpit or excuse for martyrdom. Even David Dimbleby has found it hard to lay a glove on him on election night broadcasts in recent months, which should give cause for concern. Macintyre might well be right – having him on Question Time might be the problem, when programmes like Newsnight would be much better suited to provide the hard edged questioning he and his party so richly deserve.

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