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The official BNP line on Big Brother

January 21st, 2007 · Posted by Skuds in Politics · 5 Comments · Politics

I have not watched Celebrity Big Brother, apart from a bit of the first one to make sure Teddy Sheringham wasn’t on it, but there is so much written about it that I sometimes feel as if I have seen it. Doing a search on Big Brother stories on the Guardian web site, sorted in date order, you have to get through several pages of hits before even getting back as far as yesterday’s paper!

Even without a huge interest in it I have read many different opinions, and commentary on those opinions, and opinions on those commentaries, and so on ad nauseum. But it occurred to me this morning as I was trying to find a story in the Observer which didn’t mention BB that nowhere had I seen the BNP’s reaction to all the fuss.

We have MPs asking questions in the house, Gordon Brown being forced to comment on the show during his trip to India, Call-me-Dave getting his soundbite out as well, but the one party which you would expect to have an opinion on racism seemed to be conspicuously quiet.

So I put on some rubber gloves and had a look at the BNP website. Nothing. Eventually a bit of Googling turned up this post on the Lancaster UAF blog which contains some quotes from the BNP spokesman, Dr. Phil Edwards. He says it is:

a symbol of the insecurity of a multi-racial Britain

and adds:

The show is trivia, people should stop getting upset and start talking about the real problems in Britain – mass immigration, about the number of foreigners here.

before concluding:

They should close the programme and shoot the lot of them

Certainly a different contribution to the debate, but hardly constructive. Meanwhile a story in yesterday’s Guardian contained some vox pop interviews with residents of Bermondsey which show that even racists find Jade Goody offensive. One interviewee, without a trace of irony had this to say:

A minicab driver, white, middle-aged and Bermondsey born, has a foot in each camp. “What she has been saying is terrible,” he says. “Especially as her father is a nigger.” Asked to expand, he explains that her parent is mixed race. “You know, half a pint of Guinness.”

Endemol must be loving it all. At least Jade Goody has the excuse of having the IQ of plankton, but the programme-makers knowingly manipulate everything for the sake of controversy – like throwing together Leo Sayer and a bloke who shagged his wife four years ago. They obviously do their homework and study the personalities and histories so ultimately are responsible for the consequences.

It just goes to show what we all know: they should have thrown Eugene and his family in there instead of Jade. By the end of the first week his mother would probably have been speaking to Shilpa in fluent Hindi (or maybe she already speaks an Indian language. it wouldn’t surprise me). Either that or the whole house would have been communicating in morse code. I don’t know what it would have done for their viewing figures overall, but it would have got me watching.

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5 Comments so far ↓

  • Jane Skudder

    I found Cameron’s comments particularly confusing. On one hand he said that we should be switching off our T.V. and on the other that we should all, of course, fight racism wherever we find it. If we follow his first piece of advice then I suppose we will never find it! Although I suppose we would then be hitting Endemol where it really hurts – in the advertisments.

  • Dharma

    Great site! Completely agree with the above comments.. Camerons Plan: Fight the racism that you shouldnt have seen !

  • Nephrite

    The BNP are just pathetic. Do they really think they are fooling anyone? They will NOT get to power in this country, no matter how much propaganda they use. If it comes to it, I’ll be with the crowd fighting for decency and burning the racist thugs out of their filthy offices.

  • Richard

    BNP only need to secure one seat in Crawley…that’s all they want – and need.

    Yes, we must stop them even securing that.

  • George

    The Bnp are racist thugs.. the other day there was the article of the x- bnp member who was found with bomb making equipment. Who was he trying to kill, the people who is supposed to be in favour for.. these people( if thats what they are) are the terroists. Not the so-called muslim extremists.. 9-11 inside job.. http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=loose+change