Holden Caulfield
23rd October 2009, 21:51
Phil, of A Very Public Sociologist (http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/) fame, has posted up some cracking questions on Socialist Unity (http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4792) that should be asked of Nick Griffin now he’s going to appear on Question Time:
1. Why has the BNP consistently (Stoke, Burnley Pendle) voted for above-inflation increases in council taxation, despite its claims against council tax increases and property-based council tax in general?
2. Why did Broxbourne BNP vote to block free bus passes for pensioners against their pledge that “pensioners should get free bus passes”?
3. Why did Halifax BNP councillors in abstain from voting to block the closure of a primary school in Mixenden despite election literature promising to defend all primary schools in the area.
4. Why did BNP in Kirklees agree to council service cuts in Sep 2009 declaring “a lot of the silly posts can disappear. I’ve always advocated that you get rid of 25% of council staff and no-one would notice. We won’t be able to early retirement and gold-plated pensions.”?
5. You, Griffin, have expelled certain BNP members for their political actions (including ex-Conservative BNP councillor Geoff Wallace in Halifax for supporting greenbelt housing) but not those who have implemented these above actions which harm the majority whose interests you claim to further. Why is there this discrepancy?
6. Why did you oppose the firefighters’ strike of 2002-2003, asserting that firefighters should not have the right to withdraw their labour to renegotiate terms and conditions of work? You declared firefighters “must be placed on the same level as military personnel and police officers and … forego their ambiguous position of using strike action”. Do you still agree with it?
7. Why did Stoke BNP exonerate chief executive Wayne Nutbeen for closing (in 2005) Royal Doulton’s last factories. Nutbeen’s explanation was the “company isn’t owned by Stoke-on-Trent. It is owned by the shareholders. The board has to ensure it does right by them”.
8. Why has Stoke BNP agreed to budgets (2004, 2005, 2007) that cut social spending including Citizen’s Advice Bureaus, old people’s services?
9. Which aspects of the “national good” in “Oriental countries” would you emulate in Britain first – a 2000% increase in work-related suicides, mass dismissals of workers for attending anti-government meetings or homeless nomad families working in low-wage sectors? (Your manifesto (2009) claimed “Oriental countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore have managed their economies to combine private enterprise competition with the national good, and these are the models the BNP would emulate.”)
Unfortunately they won’t be asked because I imagine the audience and other panellists will come out with killer lines that he’s heard hundreds of times before such as ‘didn’t you write articles denying the Holocaust’, ‘what do you think of David Copeland isn’t he a bad man’, etc.
Predictably the debate about Nick Griffin on Question Time that has the whole political establishment getting their knickers in a twist has polarised over the question of whether he should be allowed or banned with gratuitious references to WWII on one side vs. misquotes from Voltaire on the other. There’s been little in the way of a debate about how a party which 10 years ago had a similar social status to people like Ian Huntley is in a position to be invited onto Question Time.
The BNP present themselves as the radical opposition to mainstream political parties and the champions of their chosen constituency, the white working-class. Therefore, an important part of undermining their support is illustrating their consistent failure to act in the interests of their chosen constituency not simply calling them Nazis. In the current circumstances of the BNP posing as a respectable, but radical, alternative to the three main parties anti-fascists appearing unwilling or unable to answer their arguments is dangerous.
I imagine this is a lesson which will be lost on the thousands of people who will gather outside the BBC studios to chant ‘Narrssttiii scum off our streets’ for a few hours.
http://nationofduncan.wordpress.com/ (http://nationofduncan.wordpress.com/)
1. Why has the BNP consistently (Stoke, Burnley Pendle) voted for above-inflation increases in council taxation, despite its claims against council tax increases and property-based council tax in general?
2. Why did Broxbourne BNP vote to block free bus passes for pensioners against their pledge that “pensioners should get free bus passes”?
3. Why did Halifax BNP councillors in abstain from voting to block the closure of a primary school in Mixenden despite election literature promising to defend all primary schools in the area.
4. Why did BNP in Kirklees agree to council service cuts in Sep 2009 declaring “a lot of the silly posts can disappear. I’ve always advocated that you get rid of 25% of council staff and no-one would notice. We won’t be able to early retirement and gold-plated pensions.”?
5. You, Griffin, have expelled certain BNP members for their political actions (including ex-Conservative BNP councillor Geoff Wallace in Halifax for supporting greenbelt housing) but not those who have implemented these above actions which harm the majority whose interests you claim to further. Why is there this discrepancy?
6. Why did you oppose the firefighters’ strike of 2002-2003, asserting that firefighters should not have the right to withdraw their labour to renegotiate terms and conditions of work? You declared firefighters “must be placed on the same level as military personnel and police officers and … forego their ambiguous position of using strike action”. Do you still agree with it?
7. Why did Stoke BNP exonerate chief executive Wayne Nutbeen for closing (in 2005) Royal Doulton’s last factories. Nutbeen’s explanation was the “company isn’t owned by Stoke-on-Trent. It is owned by the shareholders. The board has to ensure it does right by them”.
8. Why has Stoke BNP agreed to budgets (2004, 2005, 2007) that cut social spending including Citizen’s Advice Bureaus, old people’s services?
9. Which aspects of the “national good” in “Oriental countries” would you emulate in Britain first – a 2000% increase in work-related suicides, mass dismissals of workers for attending anti-government meetings or homeless nomad families working in low-wage sectors? (Your manifesto (2009) claimed “Oriental countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore have managed their economies to combine private enterprise competition with the national good, and these are the models the BNP would emulate.”)
Unfortunately they won’t be asked because I imagine the audience and other panellists will come out with killer lines that he’s heard hundreds of times before such as ‘didn’t you write articles denying the Holocaust’, ‘what do you think of David Copeland isn’t he a bad man’, etc.
Predictably the debate about Nick Griffin on Question Time that has the whole political establishment getting their knickers in a twist has polarised over the question of whether he should be allowed or banned with gratuitious references to WWII on one side vs. misquotes from Voltaire on the other. There’s been little in the way of a debate about how a party which 10 years ago had a similar social status to people like Ian Huntley is in a position to be invited onto Question Time.
The BNP present themselves as the radical opposition to mainstream political parties and the champions of their chosen constituency, the white working-class. Therefore, an important part of undermining their support is illustrating their consistent failure to act in the interests of their chosen constituency not simply calling them Nazis. In the current circumstances of the BNP posing as a respectable, but radical, alternative to the three main parties anti-fascists appearing unwilling or unable to answer their arguments is dangerous.
I imagine this is a lesson which will be lost on the thousands of people who will gather outside the BBC studios to chant ‘Narrssttiii scum off our streets’ for a few hours.
http://nationofduncan.wordpress.com/ (http://nationofduncan.wordpress.com/)