Nasty Nick: fair show or not?

There's been one story that has dominated the newspaper columns and TV news bulletins in the last couple of days, culminating last night.

The decision by the BBC to invite British National Party leader Nick Griffin onto Question Time has sparked all sorts of emotions amongst people, including those who protested (some violently)outside Television Centre during the recording of the programme yesterday evening.

I managed to catch most of the show and feel it gave Griffin far too much publicity, a special treatment, and was far too much about him rather than politics and issues. He was verbally attacked, bullied you might say, by members of the audience and others on the panel, including the chair David Dimbleby and, whilst I would wholeheartedly agree with their sentiments and totally stand against what the BNP stand for, it wasn't particularly balanced, fair and democratic.

What needed to happen, more fully than it did, was for each topical issue - such as immigration, the recession, workers' rights - to be explored and addressed to each of the politicians there, particularly Jack Straw as a member of the ruling Labour party. Instead, it turned into solely the Nick Griffin show. And in that he lied through his teeth, contradicted himself and came out with some stunningly outrageous statements, which showed exactly why people are so passionate in being against him and the party he leads.

I tried to glean positives as I watched it, and one was the fact that the audience was multi-racial, including people of different ages and backgrounds, and almost to a man/woman standing together against fascism, racism and ideologies that tear communities apart and are ultimately about hate, and not love.

Whether we like it or not, God loves Nick Griffin as he loves each one of us. As a church housegroup last night we prayed for Griffin, and I pray for him as I type this - that God would reveal his love in some way to him, that he would repent from how he has acted, and see that there are better ways to go about being politics - and life.

(Photo credit: Rex Chen)

We're not watching anymore

I suppose it was inevitable given the fast-moving 'digital revolution' and the way in which the web rules over everything.

Plus, it's already happened in other areas of interest such as music... but, football - really?!

Yes, the news that England's match in Ukraine this Saturday will only be shown live on the internet - and for a fee - has not been warmly-received by fans. Rightly so too in my opinion.

OK, so England have already qualified for next year's World Cup finals, but this is still our national team playing a competitive match and hugely popular with football fans, as viewing figures show. We love to watch Rooney, Gerrard et al put on the white shirt and (hopefully) play with pride! We're on quite a roll at the moment too.

However, the 'powers that be' - whoever they are, and apparently it's not the Football Association - have deemed that supporters must fork out at least a fiver for the privilege. And it won't be shown in pubs - where most England fans (who aren't travelling) watch matches because of the atmosphere. There will be grumpy landlords up and down the country this week. Some cinemas have been selected to show the game - but can you really see football fans wanting to do this?

It's really sad that none of the terrestrial channels wanted to show this match. It came down to money apparently, but I think England supporter is right when he says, "Fifa and Uefa should insist as a condition of entry that all nations sell their games to terrestrial stations, whether it's the home or away market."

And all this in a country where, it was announced last week, there is a relatively poor broadband service (we're behind the likes of Bulgaria and Latvia in terms of quality and speech). You can see it now: you tune in to watch and the little circle spins on a black background or England are about to score on Saturday and the screen freezes. This won't work - not yet anyway.

I hope England get another win on Saturday to keep up their great record - but I won't be watching.