Question Time

I couldn't really not mention it could I...? This whole week has been leading up to the controversial decision by the BBC to allow BNP leader, Nick Griffin onto Question Time. First of all, I cannot see a reason why they could have made any other decision. We live in a democracy where everyone is entitled to their point of view and hence free speech. It is one of the most fundamental underlying policies of the modern age and restricting this would only be a step backwards. Obviously you have to be careful not to confuse free speech with verbal abuse or breaking the law because if someone is shouting racial abuse at the top of their voice in the middle of London then clearly that should not be tolerated but they are quite within their rights to have their own opinion on the matter. I still believe that as a society as a whole, we are becoming far more racially tolerant but the generation where this is not so common is still around and they are unlikely to change their minds so easily. It is very easy for the youth of today to accept multiculturalism as the norm because that's what they've grown up with and they don't know any different. Unless their parents / guardians attempt to force their views upon their children then they should grow up in a multicultural society and learn to accept it as how it is going to be.

As you can probably tell I am not a fan of the BNP and do not believe in what they stand for but the fact of the matter is that some people have voted for them and therefore their voice should be represented as any other party should and would expect to. What I do agree with is that immigration needs tighter controls otherwise there will be a population crisis like there is in China and tougher measures will need to be introduced in the future to control this before the ugly things like restricting the number of children come into force, not out of choice but out of necessity. Britain is not really very big and the landscape is such that there are lots of mountains where it would be infeasible to live. There are remote areas of Scotland that very few people live in and are unlikely to as well because they are disconnected from the rest of society.

One good thing I think has come from this is that people are starting to take more of an interest in politics and using their vote and making their opinions heard. It has become much easier recently thanks to the internet and "Web 2.0" the culture of blogging and YouTube has given the people a voice that previously wouldn't have been heard (unless you were really very persistent). I can't say that I know too much about politics and the terminology and practices frankly confuse me at times but I think that the government are finally coming around to the idea that they need to make this sort of thing more accessible and understandable to the general public. They keep talking about transparency and hopefully they will start to act on their words rather than leaving them at just that - words.

On a slightly lighter note - without trying to be too much like the One Show - I was slightly disappointed with tonight's episode of NMTB. Not sure Jack Whitehall is good enough to be a presenter yet, or certainly not on this sort of show anyway. Maybe it was the guests as well but I just felt that it looked a bit too scripted (I'm sure it always is to some extent but normally they do a pretty good job of covering it up). There were awkward pauses between the rounds and the banter with the guests was virtually non existent other than some slightly pervy conversations with Rochelle from the Saturdays about her time in SClub Juniors.

A highlight of the night was a Music based pub quiz at a pub in town, we actually managed to do pretty well - mostly thanks to my housemate who has some amazing knowledge of music from the 1990's and can tell you year a song was released for a very large selection of songs from that decade. The most I can usually get is the decade and sometimes not even that! In my defence, it has only been recently that I've really got into music after having my tastes almost dictated to me as a child and as a teenager to some extent. It wasn't until sixth form that I decided I wanted my own options on music rather than just following what everyone else liked. We didn't manage to win but came a very decent second with only a very small amount of help from Google, mostly thanks to my phone being old and useless and only being capable of WAP speeds we consulted it for three questions and still managed to get one of those wrong. It turns out we lost to 'The Google Appreciation Society' so I'm pretty sure that they had some electronic assistance as well. It is a shame that the pub quiz has taken this direction because it ruins it slightly because you know that every team will be using their phones to lookup the answers and there isn't really any way of stopping it other than holding the events in a no signal area (which is a rarity these days).