Its one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by a programme on a student radio station, there are over 400 secondary schools, 21 universities , 46 colleges in Scotland and we are getting in contact with them all. Hundreds of thousands of young people across Scotland are going to be offered the chance to take part in a project thats the first of its kind in Scotland.
Debate is Free which airs only on Subcity radio at the University of Glasgow is working on a special edition of the show separate from its usual format. 2010 is a General Election year and thousands of young people will looking at the political parties on offer and wondering who to vote for. Some may never have voted either due to the fact they were too young or they have never felt the need to vote or politics leave just them cold.
Debate is Free aims to bring the debate in a way that young people will find accessible and can interact with in a way they want to.
The special edition of Debate is Free on March 11th, potentially just weeks before an election is called will bring a panel of six before a studio audience for 90 minutes to answer their questions and questions submitted by listeners. The debate will range from the topical, to party policy to anything the audience demand be answered. Nothing is barred anything can be put forward for the panel to answer. From the recession, to the war on terror, to youth issues and human rights, we will consider anything.
Anyone will be able to listen on our website www.subcity.org and comment on what they hear on the Debate is Free Facebook fan page or by using Twitter and the tag #debateisfree. We want this to be a test of social networking so please send invites to this event to all your facebook friends and tweet details and comments. You can apply to be part of the audience here or to email any potential questions or comments email debate@subcity.org.
You can follow debateisfree on Twitter and the Facebook fanpage for panellist updates.
Showing posts with label Question Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Question Time. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Thursday, 22 October 2009
The BNP and Question Time
As you know there is nothing Debate is Free likes more than a good passionate discussion on the things that matter and what has people getting fired up. So as you can imagine I have been watching the furore over the BNP being invited to Question Time with a great deal of interest over the past few weeks.
The BNP is full of the worst of our society, it can boast of rapists, murderers, paedophiles and a range of thugs in its membership. All suited and polished in order to adhere to the party’s recent family friendly make-over.
But no amount of polish can hide what the BNP really stand for and what they seek to do to this country if they ever got the chance.
One of the BNP’s beliefs is that the holocaust was a hoax and that Hitler in words of Nick Griffin the BNP’s leader, "went a bit too far".
Well its nice to know that the murders of Jews, Communists, trade unionists, the disabled, gays and lesbians, gypsies and a variety of people who proved to be inconvenient to the Third Reich totalling 17 million massacred in death camps and the deaths of over 50 million people worldwide was just going a bit too far.
Then there is also the delightful misogyny of a Mr Nick Eriksen; a former BNP London Assembly candidate and party organiser for London, who in his blog wrote the following regarding rape.
"I've never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime ... Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.
"To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched."
Charming. But this is what you can expect from Mr Eriksen and others like him in the BNP, despite the fact that he was removed from the BNP’s London Assembly list for his comments, many senior figures rallied around him saying his comments were “taken out of context”. So as long as that man at the bar you say no to in the first place adds some rohypnol to your drink while your back is turned before dragging you off to a quiet spot to get his way rape is a-ok. As long as you are not beaten black and blue that makes rape condonable in the eyes of Eriksen and his ilk.
But these are not the worst of the BNP, for that you have to look to David Copeland, now also known as the London Nail Bomber. In 1999 Copeland was responsible for the deaths of three people including a woman expecting her first child and the injuries of nearly 130 people, four of whom lost limbs. A toddler also had a nail embedded in the brain which required extensive surgery to remove.
In the end the BNP were not tough enough for Copeland so he joined the Neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Movement. A group known for their extreme violence and desire to terrorise the UK’s Asian, Black, Gay and Jewish communities.
I could go on, but to be honest I could be here for days listing the convictions and faults of BNP members both past and present.
Whether you like the BNP or not they should be allowed on Question Time tonight. To refuse them sets a dangerous precedent that could be abused against other smaller parties when they say or do things that the three big parties don’t like. Are we now going to stop the Green party who also hold two seats in the European Parliament speaking out on controversial issues?
Hysterical screaming will not make the BNP go away, they must be taken on face to face with both rational debate and serious action. To try and hide them makes them appear like martyrs for their cause and underdogs in the political process.
The BNP are capitalising on the failures of successive governments and their failure to address the fears of a large proportion of the population be they unfounded or not. Fear is the most corrosive emotion; it makes normally rational people lash out against the things they don’t understand. And what people are scared of now is the unknown, do they have jobs tomorrow, will their children have jobs in the future. There are many people out there who are scared that now the world is going too fast for them to keep up with.
But there are also those who understand what the BNP really are and support it. I have the suspicion that the UK is not nearly as enlightened as it likes to think it is. With more hate crimes reported than ever before are we now fooling ourselves into thinking that the BNP’s support are simply frightened of the future rather than people who support the BNP’s racist policies?
But as for would Debate is Free ever interview Nick Griffin? Yes, we would. Its time for someone to ask questions of the BNP’s leader. Questions like; does the BNP still believe that ethnic minorities should be sterilised? What happens to the voluntary removal of immigrants and anyone with the wrong colour of skin when they refuse to move? Will they be forced out the country? What will happen to the children of mixed-race couples? Will the marriages of mixed race couples be nullified?
These questions need asked, and chances are it’s not going to happen on this night’s edition of Question Time, but its time to see what Griffin is saying and start fighting against him.
The BNP is full of the worst of our society, it can boast of rapists, murderers, paedophiles and a range of thugs in its membership. All suited and polished in order to adhere to the party’s recent family friendly make-over.
But no amount of polish can hide what the BNP really stand for and what they seek to do to this country if they ever got the chance.
One of the BNP’s beliefs is that the holocaust was a hoax and that Hitler in words of Nick Griffin the BNP’s leader, "went a bit too far".
Well its nice to know that the murders of Jews, Communists, trade unionists, the disabled, gays and lesbians, gypsies and a variety of people who proved to be inconvenient to the Third Reich totalling 17 million massacred in death camps and the deaths of over 50 million people worldwide was just going a bit too far.
Then there is also the delightful misogyny of a Mr Nick Eriksen; a former BNP London Assembly candidate and party organiser for London, who in his blog wrote the following regarding rape.
"I've never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime ... Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.
"To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched."
Charming. But this is what you can expect from Mr Eriksen and others like him in the BNP, despite the fact that he was removed from the BNP’s London Assembly list for his comments, many senior figures rallied around him saying his comments were “taken out of context”. So as long as that man at the bar you say no to in the first place adds some rohypnol to your drink while your back is turned before dragging you off to a quiet spot to get his way rape is a-ok. As long as you are not beaten black and blue that makes rape condonable in the eyes of Eriksen and his ilk.
But these are not the worst of the BNP, for that you have to look to David Copeland, now also known as the London Nail Bomber. In 1999 Copeland was responsible for the deaths of three people including a woman expecting her first child and the injuries of nearly 130 people, four of whom lost limbs. A toddler also had a nail embedded in the brain which required extensive surgery to remove.
In the end the BNP were not tough enough for Copeland so he joined the Neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Movement. A group known for their extreme violence and desire to terrorise the UK’s Asian, Black, Gay and Jewish communities.
I could go on, but to be honest I could be here for days listing the convictions and faults of BNP members both past and present.
Whether you like the BNP or not they should be allowed on Question Time tonight. To refuse them sets a dangerous precedent that could be abused against other smaller parties when they say or do things that the three big parties don’t like. Are we now going to stop the Green party who also hold two seats in the European Parliament speaking out on controversial issues?
Hysterical screaming will not make the BNP go away, they must be taken on face to face with both rational debate and serious action. To try and hide them makes them appear like martyrs for their cause and underdogs in the political process.
The BNP are capitalising on the failures of successive governments and their failure to address the fears of a large proportion of the population be they unfounded or not. Fear is the most corrosive emotion; it makes normally rational people lash out against the things they don’t understand. And what people are scared of now is the unknown, do they have jobs tomorrow, will their children have jobs in the future. There are many people out there who are scared that now the world is going too fast for them to keep up with.
But there are also those who understand what the BNP really are and support it. I have the suspicion that the UK is not nearly as enlightened as it likes to think it is. With more hate crimes reported than ever before are we now fooling ourselves into thinking that the BNP’s support are simply frightened of the future rather than people who support the BNP’s racist policies?
But as for would Debate is Free ever interview Nick Griffin? Yes, we would. Its time for someone to ask questions of the BNP’s leader. Questions like; does the BNP still believe that ethnic minorities should be sterilised? What happens to the voluntary removal of immigrants and anyone with the wrong colour of skin when they refuse to move? Will they be forced out the country? What will happen to the children of mixed-race couples? Will the marriages of mixed race couples be nullified?
These questions need asked, and chances are it’s not going to happen on this night’s edition of Question Time, but its time to see what Griffin is saying and start fighting against him.
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