It seemed like every time I turned on the TV or radio during the last week, all I heard about was the BNP, especially if it was a BBC show.  If they talked about anything else, I missed it. And to be honest, it was getting to the point where I was thinking, I’m sick and tired of hearing about the BNP and fed up of Nick Griffin’s name being mentioned all the time. Not because I’ve got any sympathy for the bloke or his party! Far from it. I just thought it was all a bit irrelevant. That most right-thinking people would have no time for their rubbish and it was all a lot of fuss over nothing.

But then I watched the videos today on Bedminster People of those racist scum attacking our local shopkeepers.  And it does make you think. It’s all very well for Nick Griffin to sit spouting lies and rubbish on Question Time, but what you see in those videos is how it translates on the street. And it’s vile.

I have always been a believer in free speech, but it makes me uncomfortable to see the BNP being given any kind of platform.  And yet apparently a million people voted for him and his colleague! So in a democracy, the argument goes, he should be allowed to speak on programmes like Question Time.

Some people have moaned today that Griffin wasn’t able to get much of a word in edgeways. But that makes me think of a story I heard about Moseley’s Black Shirts coming to Bristol before WW2 broke out. They were supposed to be holding a rally on the Downs, but people chased them away and wouldn’t let them speak.  I hope people today will have as much sense as they did 70 odd years ago.