Free Speech

Should the BBC have given the BNP leader an opportunity to speak? Personally I think that the BBC were correct in allowing the BNP leader to speak. Free speech is the corner stone of our democracy, that right to free speech must be tempered with common sense, we cant allow incitement to hatred against any individual or group of individuals. Time and again we have seen a small group of 'journalists' incite hate against individuals and groups of individuals, who will forget that rag tabloid that published lists of alleged sex offenders, resulting in totally innocent people being burned out of their homes, or indeed the most recent outrage concerning the death of the most wonderful Stephen Gately of Boyzone. Yet such banner headlines and insensitivity are written by people who are to be pitied rather than prosecuted. These articles are written by people who seek attention due to some sociological or psychological defect from a time or place, attention deficit disorder is the term I am looking for. Anyway, the BNP has nothing to offer most people and to ban them from our public airways would be a mistake. In Ireland we had the ridiculous situation where Sinn Fein were banned from the airways in the Republic of Ireland for many years during the 'troubles' in the north of Ireland and yet when Sinn Fein were given access to the national airways nobody was really interested in what they had to say, thats why they have been reduced to having four representitives in the Dail (House of Parliment) in the Republic. Again in the north of Ireland Sinn Fein were barred from the airways from 1986 and actors were used to speak their words, what a farce. In the last European Elections in the north Sinn Fein actually lost 18,000 votes compared to their performance in 2004. That said Sinn Fein will be about for a long time in the north as the only other nationalist party the SDLP are viewed by working class Catholics as woolly jumpers (middle/upper middle class) who have done little for the poorer working communities. There is no logic in banning people from the airways or denying them free speech unless they break with basic principles of common decency, such bans are driven by people who feel inadequate or who feel that they may be exposed. For example in the Irish Republic Mr Pat Kenny who hosted the Late Late show up until recently, interviewed a convicted sex offender, the usual burn the books brigade cried foul and so did some politicians, yet behind this fasade was the fear of being exposed. Politicians feared that they would be exposed for their failure to provide even basic rehabilitative care for such offenders while in prison and the makey up groups feared that they would be exposed for their banner headlines and tabloid driven moral panics that insure that they remain at the top of the Government grant list and maintain their inflated salaries and expenses as they go about their 'voluntary' work. My view is that free speech must be upheld as a basic human and civil right, yet with that right comes responsibility, that right must not be denied lightly, and that responsibility must not be dictated by they who feel inadequate in their own walk of life.