BNP: Crunching Some Numbers

So, the BNP have claimed that 3,000 people joined their party after Griffin's appearance on Question Time. Which would be more worrying if the overall viewing figures for the show weren't over 8,000,000. Simple maths shows me that less than 1% of the audience were moved to join that terrible party after the leader's terrible appearance. In fact, to be precise, 0.0375% of the TV audience took the plunge and registered. Obviously it would be nicer if the figure was a big fat zero, but just under 0.04% doesn't seem tremendously troubling.

The idea that 22% of people would "seriously consider" voting for the BNP is more concerning. But it is worth noting that "seriously considering" voting for someone when an election is over half a year away is very different to what people will actually do when they get into the voting booths.

Maybe the BNP did get a popularity boost from Question Time; however, in the cold light of day, it is a limited boost at best. And they have grown steadily in popularity in some areas recently anyway. I remain confident that a continued engagement of all against the BNP on matters such as policy - in other words their crude socialism and unthinking, ignorant racism - should leave them wide open to being utterly discredited in the future. No matter what the hysteria might say, there is no chance of the BNP taking power in some sort of electoral racist revolution in the near future.