Acrticles by Paul Richards & Bonnie Greer Re: Last night’s events have set back, not advanced, the fight against fascism and racism

I am sure that comrades Paul Richards and Bonnie Greer gcomments goes a long way see below:

Lots of people watched last night’s Question Time. Despite not wanting to boost their viewing figures, even by one, I was one of them. We saw Griffin’s unconvincing ‘hard-done-to’ act (‘I’ve been relentlessly attacked and demonised’); his eccentric description of white people as aborigines who’ve been here for ’17,000 years, since the ice melted’; his slur about Jack Straw’s father being imprisoned as a conscientious objector; his highly- selective view of Churchill’s statements on race and immigration; his constant complaining about being ‘misquoted’ and being the ‘most loathed man in Britain’; his justification for sharing a platform with David Duke from KKK, and visiting Libya; his nonsense about ‘genocide’, ‘homosexuality’ and the ‘ultra-leftist BBC’. He did not come across well.

The audience resembled a rowdy student union meeting at times: angry people shouting, peppered with small amounts of applause. At other times, the questioners had better lines than the politicians. The guy with the line about a one-way ticket to the South Pole deserved his applause. The young Jewish guy nailed him on Holocaust denial. Griffin squirmed, but failed to repudiate his underlying denial of the facts of the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews. The woman who said she was in a civil partnership, and told Griffin the feeling of ‘revulsion’ was mutual, spoke for millions.

Jack Straw did his best in the circumstances. Unfortunately his reference to Dr Strangelove (a 1950s Peter Sellers film) went over the heads of his mostly young audience. He messed up his answer on immigration, and Baroness Warsi got a clap for challenging him on the issue. She rightly called Griffin a ‘thoroughly deceptive man’. Bonnie Greer made a good point about the multi-cultural Romans’ legacy in the British gene-pool, and the BNP’s ‘wacky history’. Chris Huhne was typically underwhelming.

It was not good television. It was disjointed and ill-tempered. But it gave the BNP 72 hours of wall-to-wall coverage, and, I fear, hundreds of new members and donors. In short, the BBC’s invitation to Nick Griffin, the screening of the programme, and the Labour party’s willingness to take part last night, has set back, not advanced, the fight against fascism and racism.

I remember my dear late father (RAF, retd.) telling me about the first time he came across eastern Europeans coming to the UK, doing jobs that should have been done by Englishmen. They were flying Hurricanes and Spitfires, and in May 1940 we were rather glad of them; even more than when their grandchildren came back to fix our radiators.

It is of course crass and ahistorical for the BNP to expropriate images from the second world war in support of their cause. That was a war fought by men and women of many races, religions and nationalities, against the Nazis’ vision of a totalitarian state enslaving the non-Aryan peoples of Europe, and murdering all the Jews until there were none left.

As far as I recall, people with views like Nick Griffin’s were not asked to join in the allies’ fight. They were locked up under the defence of the realm act. As our knowledge of the Holocaust increases, as more and more documentary evidence is amassed, as the last voices from the war are recorded and archived, we gain a greater understanding of the politics and organisation of Nazi Germany and its allies.

That’s what the ‘no platform’ policy is all about. ‘No platform’ says there are people, views and organisations which are not part of the spectrum of opinion that exists within a democratic politics. They are beyond the pale. They should be treated differently, because they have the whiff of Belsen about them. ‘No platform’ says politics is not an extension of the Oxford Union; it is a matter of life and death. You can’t ‘debate’ with people who are not playing by the same rules.

I was schooled in the ‘no platform’ policy. At Salford University in the 1980s, we didn’t have a debating club. We had a Labour Club. We threw eggs at Margaret Thatcher, picketed Kenneth Baker and got charged by police horses, and the idea of sharing a platform with a fascist was impossible to contemplate. There was only one active Tory on campus (he’s currently standing to be the next Tory MP for Reading.).

The electoral success of the BNP, following its deliberate strategy of obfuscation and concealment of its true credo, makes ‘no platform’ more, not less, important. To treat the BNP like an opponent to be debated with totally vindicates Griffin’s strategy. He can say to his own internal hard-liners: look it’s working. Jack Straw is debating us on national television. I’m landing punches.

The Labour party should not have reversed its position on ‘no platform’. That was a stupid tactical error which strengthens the fascists’ hand. It creates a precedent that every other political programme editor will be able to cite. It undermines local Labour candidates fighting BNP candidates for the council or parliament. It creates the same mistakes that the French political class made when they thought they could out-argue Le Pen and the Front National, before they won millions of votes in the 1984 Euro-elections.

Or, dare I say, the mistakes made by the German political class when confronted by Hitler.

Bonnie Greer reveals what she really thought of Griffin

The Evening Standard has some fascinating snippets from Bonnie Greer, the playright and British Museum trustee who sat next to Nick Griffin on Question Time last night. She calls the experience "probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life":

"It was the strangest thing because as I came out of my dressing room prepared for combat, it was as if he'd been waiting for me in the corridor". "I was the last to emerge and when he saw me, he turned and smiled his greasy smile and clumsily half extended a hand. I ignored it and thought to myself: what are you about? Are you forgetting I'm black? Are you forgetting you called me a black history fabricator? Are you trying to show me you aren't racist?"

"We were seated next to each other and as we were having our microphones attached, he leaned towards me like I was his new best friend and tried to make small talk. "Bonnie, how many times have you been on?" he asked. "Bonnie, do you find it scary?" I looked him straight in the eye. "No," I replied sharply, "but you might."

"I spent the entire night with my back turned to him. At one point, I had to restrain myself from slapping him. But it was worth it because he was totally trounced. I had thought we'd face a formidable orator, somebody who knew his facts and had his ducks in a row but the guy was a mess! From the moment the audience began shooting questions, it was a case of the Emperor's new clothes. He was completely exposed as an evasive liar who couldn't even stand up his own quotes and looked like a buffoon."

Greer also talks about her background in Chicago, and her father's experience of coming to Britain as part of Patton's army during the Second World War.

Read the full article here.

Copenhagen: There Is No Plan B

Gordon Brown spoke to the Major Economies Forum this morning, calling for ambitious action in Copenhagen to avert a global climate change "catastrophe" - and warned this could be the world's last chance to act together to make a difference.

The PM told environment ministers from 17 countries - who together are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions:

"In every era there are only one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements that make history, because they change the course of history. Copenhagen must be such a time. There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more. If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late."

He continued:

"The extraordinary summer heat wave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths. On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time...and within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe. In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods.

"We cannot compromise with the earth. We can not compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change; so we must compromise with one another...I urge my fellow leaders to work together to reach agreement amongst us, recognising both our common and our differentiated responsibilities – and the dire consequences of failure."

Labour Must Urgently Change The Game

Parliament is back but for Labour and the wider centre-left it feels like nothing has really changed. Certainly the opinion polls haven't. Labour urgently needs to change the game and in this context its own party conference can only be seen as another wasted opportunity.

Faced with the looming prospect of a Conservative Government, the response of every minister has been to read a list of government achievements and declare the fightback has begun. The list - as we heard in Gordon Brown's conference speech - is impressive and contains a lot of achievements that have made Britain a better place: tax credits, the minimum wage, devolution, Sure Start the list can go on.

But as a campaigning device outside of Labour's narrowing ranks it simply doesn't work. There is a tumbleweed moment as ministers on platforms or the media go through it. There are a number of important reasons why it's so unpersuasive: voters take government action for granted; there are too many inconsistencies such as the 10p tax debacle; much of it was done by stealth; few trust what Labour says anyway because of all the spin (not least on Iraq); there is little idea of what overarching vision it adds up to; there is no "forward offer" and crucially no sense that the people themselves were ever part of it. It's not their list.

Ultimately it's not whether Labour ministers or even Compass declare that it's a good list and makes the Party worthy of re-invention - it's whether people feel it is and communicate that belief to others. The problem with the New Labour project was it never built an enduring progressive coalition of believers, activists and supporters.

This is all a bit frustrating, to say the least, because something has changed in the last few weeks. The Tories have now revealed themselves as a party that is not agnostic about the state but hostile. David Cameron's whole conference pitch was against ‘big government' - to be replaced not by better government but by either much smaller government or preferably no government at all. Public spending would be slashed not just because of the deficit but because government is bad per se. We know this because the other theme of his speech was the role of individual responsibility as a replacement for the state.

This is where Labour should be tearing the Tories apart. It was not big government that got us into the economic mess but reckless companies - namely big banks - led by people with scant regard for their wider responsibilities to society, driven solely by self-interest.

Last year Cameron talked of a day of reckoning for bankers, but with no real action even this big talk rings hollow. Where is the bankers' responsibility to their customers facing rip-off interest rates, or the cleaners in hospitals who will now lose their jobs or have their pay frozen?

Let us be clear the Tories are getting away with murder: Britain is not bankrupt, the deficit - caused mostly by the bank bailout and reductions in tax revenues - does not have to be paid off now (indeed it is worth noting that our debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than both France and Germany and significantly lower than Italy and the US); Britain is not a highly taxed nation and the financial crisis was not caused by big government - it was caused by big banks, those very same banks that would have gone bankrupt without government intervention. Therefore it is particularly disappointing that in recent days Labour appears to have capitulated to the Tories on the debate over public spending and the need to cut the deficit.

With Britain still in recession the government should be loudly and clearly making the case of the need for more, not less government action. With unemployment expected to continue rising for some time and the catastrophic state of youth unemployment in particular - worse now than under Thatcher - why aren't there bolder moves to invest vaster sums in a Green New Deal to help create new jobs for the future? Why is there no move to equalise the minimum wage for our young people? With over 5 million on the housing waiting list, why is the government instructing local authorities to sell off land at the bottom of the market, instead of using that land to build the new homes so desperately required and creating construction jobs in the process? Bailing out ordinary working people, securing and creating new jobs for the future should be Labour's top priority.

Despite all the opportunities, Labour is struggling to fight back. It was Labour's regulatory regime that allowed the banks to be so reckless in the first place, providing the framework that fostered an economy over-reliant on growth in financial services. At the same time the state has not been modernised; rather it's been centralised and privatised.

And Cameron was able to land a hammer blow on Labour by telling us that Britain is a more unequal society now compared to 1997 - because shamefully it is. Of course things would have been much worse under the Tories and will be if they get back into power - but it is Labour's fault if the nation is not persuaded of that and reading out the list of past achievements in a louder voice without spelling out any clear vision for the future isn't going to change any minds.

We must be under no illusions the stakes are now very high. It's not just that Labour might lose the next election and all that entails for our people, our planet and our democracy but this could be the very last Labour Government - as revealed in the report we published last month.

If they win, the Tories will reduce the number of seats in Parliament and their election could trigger Scottish independence with the loss of even more Labour MPs. This, combined with new rules on party funding, could destroy Labour's chances of effective recovery.

That is why the decision not to hold a referendum on changing the electoral system on election-day was such a huge mistake - both in terms of principal and tactics. It is a major issue that puts Cameron on the defensive and can inspire progressive voters to get out and swing back to Labour.

Compass will campaign to keep the Tories out and help Labour present itself in a way that rebuilds a winning electoral coalition. The Conservatives present no answers to the problems facing our country and they must be stopped from gaining power. That is why we will:

* Take the fight to the Tories - exposing how wrong and weak their thinking and polices are.

* Carry out a report on how to re-socialise banking with a research project that in part our members helped pay for.

* Fight for a referendum on election-day on the introduction of electoral reform.

* Launch a major report on taxation and spending before the Pre-Budget Report.

* Continue the campaign for a High Pay Commission - to ensure that never again can greed at the top turn so quickly into pain at the bottom.

* Present an alternative manifesto of policy ideas that would transform our country - making it more democratic, equal and sustainable.

* And continue to shift the terms of debate about a good society in which we collectively become the authors of our lives.

Osborne's maths are as bad as his morals, says Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne.

Yesterday, George Osborne comprehensively failed the credibility test – and a basic test of fairness. His plans fail to meet Labour’s pledge to halve the deficit over four years. He claimed “we are all in this together” – but his first priority remains a tax cut for the richest families.

The Credibility Test

People expected George Osborne to set out by how much he would cut the deficit, just as the Government has done by committing to cut it in half over four years. We heard nothing of the sort.

The Tories told us that George Osborne’s speech would set out clearly how they would pay for their long list of unfunded tax and spending commitments - “by this time tomorrow you should know just about everything”, Eric Pickles said on Monday.

But the speech doesn’t even pay for itself, let alone make any progress on their irresponsible plans for tax and spend, or matching the Government’s plan to halve the deficit over four years.

First, people were expecting the Conservatives to drop the tax and spending pledges they have already made – just six of which were estimated in The Independent to cost £54bn. Yet all the uncosted pledges stayed.

Second, the Tories were expected to drop their pledges on inheritance tax and marriage tax allowance. Yet it stayed.

Third, Osborne’s new idea to reverse the dividend tax credit change would cost £3-5bn a year – far more than the concrete savings he outlined. Fourth, Osborne’s plan for a tax cut for small business, announced last night, that would undercut existing firms, remained unfunded – in fact it wasn’t even mentioned in yesterday’s speech.

Worse, their plans on raising the retirement age completely unravelled.

Last night George Osborne briefed that he would save £13bn a year by raising the retirement age for men and women to 66 by 2016. But the Shadow Chancellor’s new policy has already been downgraded, by David Cameron, to an independent review without even a chair to put a name to it. And the firm 2016 date for implementation has disappeared for women and been watered down for men.

Even before the u-turn it was clear the savings figure didn’t stack up. And even once they’ve got their costings right, the change still won’t raise a penny in the next Parliament when we are halving the deficit. To get anywhere near £13bn of savings would require much faster increases in the retirement age for everyone, including women. If that is the Tories' plan they should come clean on it.

The Fairness Test

Mr Osborne’s fairness failure was even worse. His credibility failure left him simply attacking the middle class to pay for the Tory tax cut for the richest few. He stuck by his plans for an inheritance tax cut of £200,000 for the richest 3,000 families, for which the mainstream middle will have to pay. His plans would mean:

* 900,000 children would miss out on Child Trust Funds. Providers would stop offering accounts at all in some cases. For families earning over £16,040 with two children they would lose £1,000 in direct payments for their children.

* The removal of tax credits from those over £50,000 would hit 130,000 families and only raise £40m – the Tories' promise to save £400m would mean affecting families on much lower incomes than £50,000.

So, bad maths. And worse morals.

After Stephen Fry's letter yesterday, leading gay rights campaigner Ben Summerskill boycotted the first ever Tory Pride event at the last minute...

Ben Sumerskill, the head of gay rights group Stonewall has pulled out of speaking at the Tories' first ever Pride event - due to be held on Canal Street tonight - as a result of Michal Kaminsky's appearance at Conservative conference.

Summerskill told Channel 4 News:

"There is no doubt the progress that has been made in the last couple of years has genuinely been historic. It would churlish of anyone not to welcome the apology a couple of months ago over Section 28. But the event tonight has been overshadowed by the presence, not just at conference but on the same platform as some senior members of the party, of people of such extreme and offensive views. And certainly there are people I've spoken to at the conference today, not just gay people but Jewish delegates as well, who share that viewpoint."