Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, is being touted behind the scenes in the Labour Party as the man to take on Nick Griffin, the unsavoury leader of the British National Party, on Question Time after the BBC decided to allow him the oxygen of publicity on the programme.Officially, Labour is now "reviewing" its policy of never fielding members to debate with representatives of the racist party. Gordon Brown is, I am told, taking a personal interest in the issue and favours Straw, a lawyer by training, as the man to take on Griffin.
"We have to put up a heavyweight, otherwise we will be accused of giving Griffin too easy a time of it," whispers my man at Labour Party headquarters.
Still, there is a danger that Griffin may throw back at Straw the comments he made about Islamic veils in 2006. The Blackburn MP described them as a "visible statement of separation and difference" and called on women to cease wearing them. This allegedly led to ugly instances of yobs pulling veils off Muslim women in streets.
He doesn't seem to find it too hard to outwit Gordon Brown, but David Cameron apparently failed to dazzle one of his tutors at Eton. Last week, a large group of Old Etonians honoured a retired beak, Michael Kidson, on his 80th birthday with a dinner at White's and were regaled with a special tribute from the Tory leader.
The letter from Cameron that was read out disclosed that he had written to Kidson to thank him after he was awarded an A grade in his history A-level. The teacher said he had greeted the news of Cameron's achievement as "amongst the most inexplicable events in modern history".
Telegraph
8 comments:
More seriously, Gri££in may throw back some of Straw's more unfortunatre comments to the effect that the 'English as a race are not worth saving' and the 'English are intrinsically violent' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/596717.stm
Straw should engage his brain before opening his gob.
Yeah, Straw's past and recent comments will come back to haunt him.
What about John Prescott?
And if Prescott decides to do a "Prescott" then so much the better :)
Better that Labour leave the seat empty and make a point, rather than normalise the BNP.
Has he got one to engage???????
tulip
Let's up the ante here.
I'm not trolling, this question has just occurred to me.
With all this talk of not giving Griffin the 'oxygen of publicity', how did you guys feel about the media blackout of Sein Fein by Thatcher at the height of the troubles? Personally, I was against it and getting an actor to speak over the top of an image of Gerry Adams was just ludicrous.
My enduring memory of Griffin on TV was an interview he did on NewsNight about a year ago. Under fire, he commented "You're only looking at the bad side of racism" to which Jeremy Paxman (or whoever it was) immediately responded "Oh there's a GOOD side to racism is there?"!! Griffin floundered and then blathered on some nonsense about racism being a term invented by Leon Trotsky...
I'd put him and the BNP on TV every night and let people see what they're really like, myself. They'd soon disappear up their own backsides I reckon.
Straw would do best to leave race alone and tackle the "academic giant" on isuse of the economy, health care, education and climate change. Even better would be to ask him about things which he has absolutely no opinion on - he would then rush in like the ignorant fool he is and make the most weird statements imaginable.
I have little or no faith in Jack Straw or John Prescott have we nobody to take the Nazi BNP on.
Jackie.
Anonymous said...
Straw would do best to leave race alone and tackle the "academic giant" on isuse of the economy, health care, education and climate change. Even better would be to ask him about things which he has absolutely no opinion on - he would then rush in like the ignorant fool he is and make the most weird statements imaginable.
5:56 PM, September 13, 2009
What are you on about? They talk about the news of the day, they don't sit there tearing each other apart. If they attack Griffin like that we will never hear the end of it.
Do me a favour - Jack Straw!!! He can't debate to save his life. Now, John Prescott would make mince meat out of that toffer Griffin.
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