Saturday, 24 October 2009

Perhaps the biggest hazard, to themselves and other road users, are cyclists who ignore traffic lights. Ten or 20 years ago, the majority of cyclists ignored traffic lights. Now nearly all do so. Why? Ignorance? Arrogance? The police can’t be bothered? As part of his drive to improve community policing in Strathclyde, could Chief Constable Stephen House explain what he intends to do about enforcing road traffic law for cyclists in his force area? I was told by a community policeman that an hour at the Charing Cross lights does no end of good for the public coffers. And that’s just the cars.

Derek Manson-Smith, Glasgow

It seems a pity that, by highlighting the comments that cyclists should abide by the law, based on the Public Accounts Committee’s look at the safety of vulnerable road users, attention is once again diverted from the real issue of the daily carnage caused by motor vehicles.

Of the 650 pedestrians killed annually by motor vehicles, 40 are on footways or verges. The average for pedestrian fatalities caused by cyclists on pavements over the same period is 0.3. Which needs to be highlighted?

You quoted Scottish Government figures on cycling injuries with an incidence 34% lower than England and Wales. Unfortunately, the Holyrood government’s own research says cyclists in Scotland average only half the distance of the UK as a whole: 37km compared to 75km. This means we have a considerably worse record in Scotland, for each mile. It is a pity the new Road Safety Framework did not adopt the more realistic casualties per distance cycled measure, as in England.

This is more evidence that Safety In Numbers, the campaign by CTC, the UK’s national cycling organisation, is the simplest and best tactic to improve safety for cyclists and encourage more frustrated motorists to see cycling as the best way to get around.

Peter Hayman, CTC Councillor, Scotland, Parklands, Railton Road, Guildford, Surrey.

I walk to work from Ibrox to Cowcaddens over the Squinty Bridge and very often have had to jump out of the way of cyclists on the pavements. I have been shouted at, had pingy cycling bells rung at me and have even been body-checked to get out of the way. The Squinty Bridge has lovely, big cycle, bus and taxi lanes. Quite often these are totally empty, but the cyclists still insist on riding on the pavement.

I find it very annoying that I, the pedestrian with the right to be on the pavement, have to move out of the way of the cyclist who does not have the right to ride on the pavement. I can confess that I have been one of those pedestrians to have barked at the cyclists, and not in very lady-like language. Mostly the replies I receive when chastising the little tykes get lost in the wind on the bridge, but on occasion I have heard “on yer bike”. With so much traffic on the roads? Er, no thanks.

Heather Mackintosh, Glasgow.

Thank goodness there has at last been a call for a ban on cyclists riding on the pavement. It’s bad enough trying to negotiate the pavements of Glasgow with their pot-holes and cracks (and other unmentionable things) without having to avoid being knocked down as well.

Dorothy E J Priestly, Shawlands, Glasgow.

BBC confers legitimacy on Griffin’s fascist British National Party

By inviting Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party (BNP) on to Question Time, the BBC failed all of us in its responsibilities as a public service broadcaster (“Clashes as BNP leader Griffin defies TV critics”, The Herald, October 23). A Holocaust denier who says he wants to build an organisation that can “defend rights for whites” was given the biggest platform his party has ever had.

The BNP was not seeking a public platform to test the strength of its ideas. What it seeks is the veneer of respectability. It was no coincidence it used the pictures of Churchill and those who gave their lives fighting Hitler’s Nazis to distance themselves from the unhelpful label of fascism.

Of course, Mr Griffin claimed to have repudiated racism. But this is a party that, until this week, would not admit anyone who was not white enough. The BNP has focused on a new target: Muslims. It claims Britain is being “colonised by Islam” and calls Islam a “vicious, wicked faith”. It tries to incite hatred against Muslims and campaigns against the building of mosques.

Some 30 years ago, rising unemployment and economic decline saw the BNP’s predecessor, the National Front, do worryingly well in elections but it was defeated by mass mobilisation of the Anti-Nazi League, millions joining Rock Against Racism and a policy of No Platform for Fascists.

Today it must be confronted and denied platforms to spread its hate.

Question Time managed to showcase the BNP as a legitimate, democratic political party. It is nothing of the kind.

One cannot rationally debate with those who systematically lie about their real views and aims, as was the case with Mr Griffin. What the Question Time panel did not realise was that one cannot defeat the fascists through intellectual debate. On the contrary, it will grow through the respectability and legitimacy Question Time inevitably confers upon the BNP.

What does defeat the fascists and what they are most scared of is mass grassroots opposition. That is how the National Front was defeated in the 1970s and it is how we can defeat the BNP at present. The only way to remove the cancer of Nazism is to starve it of the publicity it craves.

Aamer Anwar, 52 St Enoch Square, Glasgow.

I watched Question Time or, to give it its new name, the David Dimbleby Hour. While I do not support racism in any form, there was a bigger issue for me. I found the performance of the programme’s chairman appalling. His task was to chair the programme, not pursue his own aggressive agenda. Mr Dimbleby did not conduct the programme in the manner the BBC should have expected. The rights and wrongs of Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time could be debated but the poor show from Mr Dimbleby should ensure his time is up to fill the post of a neutral figure who allows fair play and sinks into the background to allow others to debate. He is not the star. He was a self-opinionated turn-off for viewers.

Iain J McConnell,East Lothian.

My disappointment at yesterday’s Newsnight was not that it gave a platform to Nick Griffin and the BNP but that, because it was conducted as a cross between bear-baiting and a kan­garoo court, it hardly allowed him to speak at all.

The best chance of allowing people to appreciate the true nastiness of the BNP would have been to allow Mr Griffin to dig his own grave. The one thing to be grateful for, I suppose, is that mud pies had not been distributed to the audience as they entered. The BBC has much to be ashamed of in this debacle.

J W Morrison, Currie.

I abhor the extreme racist and fascist views of the BNP and its leader Nick Griffin. I supported the BBC’s decision to give him air time as I thought it would expose his odious opinions to a wider audience and remove possible support for his party at the General Election, when he might have benefited from protest votes against the mainstream parties.

Bearing in mind these points, I think the programme failed, because Mr Griffin was constantly interrupted and never allowed to complete any answer, unconvincing as these may have been. It may even have been counter-productive, with many viewers who strongly oppose the BNP ending up feeling some sympathy for him because of the offensive treatment he received.

The other four members of the panel -- a minister of Jewish immigrant stock, an Asian Conservative, a black American actress and a Liberal Democrat -- were not exactly a balanced selection, and the supposedly impartial chairman David Dimbleby behaved more like the chief prosecutor cross-examining the accused. He allowed the other members to interrupt Mr Griffin constantly and also challenged him aggressively himself, producing reams of old quotes, most of which Mr Griffin claimed not to have said.

The audience was drawn mostly from West London, where there is no BNP support. Also, it was 99% hostile. Would it have been very different if this Question Time had been broadcast from Burnley or Bradford, rather than London’s Television Centre?

Mr Griffin was not convincing, and failed badly to defend his policies or refute the charges against him. He was clearly under severe pressure, and it must have been difficult to remain focused when facing a uniformly hostile audience, panel and chairman.

Many viewers at home not caught up in the media frenzy could see this for themselves and, while not being persuaded by Mr Griffin’s poor exposition, might nevertheless have felt some unease at his treatment. This Question Time was not a shining example of British fair play, freedom of speech and democracy.

Iain A D Mann, Glasgow.

The BNP public relations officer would have ordered Mr Griffin to seem on Question Time to be more of an urbane Ribbentrop than a murderous Himmler -- and didn’t he comply?

E J Hart, Helensburgh.

I am no supporter of the BNP but I do believe in democracy. Question Time, instead of offering a balanced range of questions to the panel, was organised as a “let’s get Nick Griffin” session. The audience seemed to have been vetted to make sure it was anti-BNP, while David Dimbleby, instead of acting as a neutral chairman, constantly interrupted Mr Griffin.

Jack Straw, proclaiming his Jewish background, hit out at the BNP for being a party based on race, ignoring the fact that he, along with the governments of Britain and the US, supports Israel which, since 1948, has suppressed the indigenous Arab people who once populated the country.

The supposed anti-fascists, protesting outside the BBC, actually exhibited fascist tendencies themselves, one of which is restriction on individual freedom; in this case, restricting one’s freedom to voice views at variance with their own.

We do have a problem of over-immigration, especially in a time of high unemployment, but Question Time and the coverage of the programme have given publicity and credence to this far-right party.

Andrew D Mowatt, Hamilton.

Nick Griffin was on the ropes from the beginning. After 20 minutes, his face had contorted so much in an effort to hide his blushes, he looked like a burst fish. Once the hour was up, he was on the ropes, but still breathing. The delay of This Week by another 20 minutes or so would have finished him off. As it is, the BBC allowed him to crawl away with nothing more than minor bruises.

Some complained about Mr Griffin receiving any coverage at all. I would like to see him getting as much as possible. I suspect he has very low tolerance to the opium of publicity and would die of an overdose very readily.

Martin Morrison, Sutherland.

I have little time for extremism in any shape or form, but I also get fed up with the sanctimonious utterings of politicians such as Jack Straw who seemingly disclaim any responsibility for the growth of right-wing parties. People have genuine concerns about immigration, Europe, human rights and other issues which are not addressed by the main political parties. If governments do their jobs properly, support for extremist parties will wither away.

Bob MacDougall, Stirlingshire.

I must take issue with Ian Bell over his passing sideswipe at “Jack ‘Ban That Veil’ Straw”, implying a racist intransigence regarding Islamic dress codes (“Shame all round as Nick Griffin’s world became everyone’s world”, The Herald, October 23).

I have my reservations about the Justice Secretary, but this jibe is unfair and inaccurate. It arises from Mr Straw’s regular column, in October 2006, in his local constituency paper, the Lancashire Telegraph. In it, Mr Straw related an incident a year earlier when he met a veiled woman, with her husband, at his constituency surgery. Mr Straw analyses his (moderate) discomfort at dealing with someone whose face and expressions are hidden from view.

This reaction might be understood at a heightened level if we imagine the possible problem of a veiled woman giving evidence in court, where the whole manner and value of personal evidence needs to be assessed by a jury.

Mr Straw’s column was low-key throughout, and he wound up by saying: “My concerns could be misplaced. But I think there is an issue here.” In other words, anticipating a possible problem before it has become either topical or extreme. Needless to say, the column was taken up, distorted and vilified by many a pure and popular pundit, all intent on traducing Mr Straw as a slipped-out-of-the-closet racist.

Ian Bell might do well to remember that, in these as other troubled times, one falls to be judged by the company one keeps.

Christopher Frew, Edinburgh.