In about a couple of hours, I'll be watching Nick Griffin on BBC1's "Question Time". I apologise unreservedly in advance for what I'm about to do. This is particularly an apology to anyone who'll be sharing a room with me as I watch the telly. The apology also extends to the interactive online community that bizarrely (but sweetly) read my ambling random thoughts on Twitter, as well as on this blog. I tend to get rather animated when I watch politicians on telly. This metamorphosis tends to change into shouting abuse, throwing objects of various size and the odd tweet on Twitter/text message for those moments that really frustrate me. However, I realise this may reach a whole new level when the leader of the British National Party takes centre-stage tonight. For three reasons really.
The first reason is, as well as being politically-minded, I'm half-white. Or "mixed race", as it is usually termed. If you really want to delve into the ethnic melting pot that is my blood, then I try and explain it (and my thoughts on it) a bit better on "If I'm mixed race, how come I dance like a white guy?" blog post. Suffice to say, I'm a bit miffed that my Northern English white Dad can conceivably join a racist organisation in the United Kingdom and I can't. I mean, just because I'm not as Caucasian as my old fella, I can be just as racist as him. In fact, I could probably be more racist than him for precisely that reason. As the comedian Chris Rock himself puts it, black people are more racist than whites, because there's actually two groups of people they hate; there's white people and then there are niggaz.
Secondly, due to the wonders of Facebook, I ended up getting in contact with a whole load of friends from school, one of whom is now a BNP supporter. Now, admittedly, he'd started off rather right-wing in the first place, but that's taking it a bit too far. Plus, more to the point, I wasn't certain why he was a BNP supporter, as he was actually one of my good friends at school. One of his other close friends was a fairly devout Asian Muslim bloke. This didn't compute, yet he seemed to have no issues in befriending either this Muslim bloke or myself, despite knowing the extreme views of his adopted party. As it happens, he's no longer my friend anymore. Funnily enough, it wasn't him voting BNP or any of his other repugnant views that had me breaking off the friendship. It was a series of rather homophobic* comments he made that killed the friendship off (funny how all these characteristics cluster together, ain't it?). But, to cut a long story short, I find anyone holding racist or anti-immigration views fascinating. I did a Psychology degree and find it eerily compelling that a person would have a hang-up with someone because of a slightly different skin pigment. Anyone that hasn't seen Shane Meadows' movie "This Is England" should go and watch it tomorrow. It shows confused, white working-class men that smoke the odd marijuana joint with Black friends, but who end up supporting the BNP. The film should be made compulsory at schools, quite frankly, as it shows how confused angry young men can end up walking down a skewed road.
Thirdly, I'm a libertarian and oppose censorship in any form. There's a number of fellow lefties that I know who are up-in-arms that the BNP are appearing on a television programme. A lot of these same fellow lefties were also calling for Jan Moir to be banned. For those living on the planet Mars recently, Jan Moir was the fat-faced, ugly bitch that decided to kick the barely-warm corpse of Steven Gateley with a series of ill-timed fuckwitted remarks of homophobic nonsense. However, I would fight like the Devil that she should be allowed to write such a badly-composed piece of piss in a crappy newspaper. In such an environment, it allows me to call her a fat-faced, ugly, homophobic bitch and for 250,000 complaints to be flung furiously at the toothless Press Complaints Commission (PCC). I feel better as a result of my liberal outrage, as do 250,000 other people. In such a democracy, it means that Jan Moir could be sacked and instead end up writing her foul fuggery on some obscure blog somewhere. But again, she shouldn't be gagged at writing her foul fuggery on an obscure blog somewhere. I'm certainly not gagged from writing my own brand of foul fuggery on an obscure blog somewhere. Anyway, back to the BNP. Nick Griffin can obfuscate all he wants on "Question Time" and so he should be allowed to. He should be allowed to obfuscate at length and preferably to be made as silly-looking as possible. I have every confidence that David Dimbleby will help him along, as he's done it before with a huge amount of success. Nick Griffin also made an idiot of himself two nights ago on Channel 4 News when he was interviewed by Jon Snow. Griffin was stuttering and stammering all over the place. It's not even as if Krishnan Guru-Murphy was interviewing him either, so he didn't have the excuse of being confused by a different skin pigment dazzling his wonky eyes.
In conclusion then? By tomorrow morning, you'll all be bewildered at the large audit trail of mocking and increasingly angry tweets (marked #bbcqt) that'll start at about 10.35pm tonight, while those sharing a lounge with me will have to put up with my choking laughter and baffled squeals, as I bark barely-concealed spite at the glowing box in the room's corner. Mockery is what I do best. It's what I used at school to fluster bullies and to baffle that BNP-supporting colleague. It should be added that I applied unsuccessfully to be in the audience for "Question Time" tonight, so my feeling of frustration is quite palpable. However, I hope you can all put up with my online ramblings this late eve. To those who get caught in the online crossfire, I sincerely and pre-emptively apologise.
*As part of this evening, I'm ready to hit any of Griffin's vulnerable spots, including his denial of a past gay relationship. If anything I say or tweet this evening looks like a homophobic comment, it isn't. It will, however, be extremely Griffinophobic.
Update: 23/10/2009
I made a video to go along with this blog entry!