Agreed
I watch Question Time fairly often and was surprised that rather than giving the BNP's politics a grilling, they were attacking Nick from all sides. While it would be fair as you said Tim on programmes like Newsnight, it missed the opportunity to find out what the BNP stood for and to then discuss that in the usual way.
That said, it was shocking to listen to the BNP leader's comments combined with his past quotes. He couldn't have convinced many people to take to his cause, despite trying to convince us he was a changed man - which I thought would have been his best move, but he lacked a convincing response to the charges levelled at him.
I felt Jack Straw, despite a few decent comebacks, looked out of his depths too. It wasn't hard to make convincing arguements against Nick, but it was like waiting for christmas for him to get across his message - unlike some members of the audience who were straight to the point.
Perhaps below the belt somewhat, but Nick did have a point to some extent when he said his father fought in the war for this country while Jack's father was in prison as a concientious objector (coward)
I think the tory mp from Dewsbury (who's name I can't remember) came across the best. She recognised the need for change and had convincing arguements across the board. She's possibly someone I could probably vote for if she represented my area.
Politics lacks balls these days, there's far too many people sitting on the fence while the landscape is changing around us and islam is on the increase. These are future issues that would worry me, especially if I had a family as i've seen how fundamentalists have changed Islamic countries for the worse. These are issues i'd have liked to hear responses to and even though I couldn't go for the hardline bnp approach to immigrants, attacking policies without even discussing their merits isn't helpfull.
Don't we live in a democracy anymore? Supressing peoples thoughts rather that discussing them leads to problems later on.
