2 Big Stories

Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time

British National Party leader Nick Griffin has used his Question Time appearance to criticise Islam and defend a past head of the Ku Klux Klan.

He also told a largely hostile audience that Winston Churchill would be a BNP supporter if he were alive, and said he would find two men kissing “creepy”.

Anti-fascist protestors scuffled with police outside BBC TV Centre in west London before the show was filmed.

Minister Peter Hain said the BBC had legitimised the BNP’s “racist poison”.

But the corporation defended the invitation to the leader of the anti-immigration party to appear, saying it had a duty to be impartial.

One of the panellists, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, said it had been a “catastrophic week for the BNP because for the first time the views of the BNP have been properly scrutinised”.

And following the programme, other panellists said Mr Griffin had been exposed. BBC (with video)

Time to talk, says Brown, as three-day Royal Mail strike looms

Three more days of nationwide postal strikes are being planned by union leaders as the Government intensifies its efforts to get the parties to independent arbitration.

As postal workers joined picket lines across the country yesterday, and with 78,000 to strike today, the Communication Workers Union served notice of further walkouts next Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Union leaders repeated their wish to bring in independent arbitrators to resolve the dispute with Royal Mail. The company is refusing to take the matter to Acas (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) while the spectre of strike action remains.

So far the Government has stood firmly behind the Royal Mail. Dave Ward, the CWU’s deputy general secretary, said last night that the union may end financial support for the Labour Party — it has given the party £6 million since 2001. (Times)

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

• Question Time BNP Bingo at Duncan Stott’s Split Horizons blog. I can reveal, Derren Brown-style, that I predicted the final score would be 18 😉 Duncan promises an update today, after which I may have to hastily revise that figure…
• A List of Labour Hypocrites (and a few who aren’t) at Andy Hinton’s Wouldn’t it be Scarier blog. On Vince Cable’s motion, pushing for justice for Equitable Life policy holders:
  

  Here is a list of the Labour MPs who, whilst quite happy to sign an EDM on the matter, couldn’t bring themselves to actually embarrass their own party and vote for the (almost identical) Lib Dem motion when it might make a real difference…