With a peak of 8.2 million viewers and an average of 7.9 million, Question Time was the second most watched terrestrial TV programme yesterday after EastEnders.

Audience figures for shows on other channels at the same time were much lower.

 

The BBC said it received more than 350 complaints after the show was broadcast last night by midday today - the bulk of which accused the show of being biased against the BNP and/or Mr Griffin.

More than 240 people felt the show was biased against the BNP, while more than 100 of the complaints were about Mr Griffin being allowed to appear on Question Time.

In addition, more than 50 people contacted the BBC to show their appreciation for the programme.

French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who saw his support double overnight after appearing on a high-profile TV political discussion show in 1984, suggested the BNP could receive a boost from last night's programme.

Mr Le Pen, leader of France's Front National, told London's Evening Standard: "Small fish will become big so long as God gives them life.

"All political groups have started as marginal before becoming important."

Nick Griffin last night denied he was a Nazi but portrayed himself as the victim of a media hate campaign as he made his controversial appearance on BBC TV’s flagship Question Time.

While hundreds of anti-facist protesters demonstrated outside BBC TV Centre in west London, inside the studio the BNP leader was barracked by members of the audience during the hour-long programme.

At one point Mr Griffin, 50, said: “I have been relentlessly attacked and demonised over the last few days,” and declared: “I am not a Nazi and never have been.”

After fellow panellist Jack Straw hit out at the BNP for being a party that based itself purely on race, the far right leader taunted the Justice Secretary, saying how his father had served in the RAF in the Second World War while Mr Straw’s father “was in prison for refusing to fight Adolf Hitler”.

Several members of the audience booed.

Asked why he had “hijacked” Winston Churchill’s reputation, Mr Griffin claimed the British war leader would have been a member of the BNP because he was against mass immigration and opposed fundamentalist Islam.

Pressured to explain his Holocaust denial, the BNP leader replied: “I cannot explain why I used to say those things” but stressed he had “changed his mind” on the subject.

To applause, one audience member branded Mr Griffin’s views “disgusting” and accused him of seeking to “poison” British politics.

Another suggested derisively that the MEP should be consigned to the “colourless landscape” of the South Pole.

“It will suit you fine,” he said.

Baroness Warsi, the shadow communities minister, argued that the majority of the audience were “appalled” by the far right leader’s views, which had been “exposed” by his appearance on the programme.

Chris Huhne, for the Liberal Democrats, accused Mr Griffin of “playing the same old game” of “peddling hatred and fear against a minority”.

Earlier, around 500 demonstrators gathered outside TV Centre, bringing traffic to a halt. Many carried placards with the message: “The BNP is a Nazi Party. Smash the BNP.”

Some chanted: “We’re black, white, Asian and Jew, BBC shame on you”.

At one point, around 25 protesters broke through the metal barriers and made their way inside the White City studio. Some were wrestled to the ground by security personnel and carried out.

The Metropolitan Police said there had been six arrests, including two for violent disorder.

Several officers were injured.

Protests also took place outside the BBC studios in Glasgow.

After the programme, Mr Griffin, who had earlier claimed that his appearance had propelled the BNP “into the big time”, said he had not been surprised by the hostile reception.

He described it as a “beat up Nick Griffin programme” and added: “It was a hard fought match and I’m perfectly happy that I have done my best. I can see that millions of people who don’t usually watch Question Time will remember what I’ve said and think that’s how they feel, and I’m perfectly happy with that.”

He said he expected to appear on the programme again.

After the recording, Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary who had appealed to the BBC to drop Mr Griffin, strongly condemned the decision to go ahead with the broadcast.

“The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history. That the BNP has publicly thanked the BBC says it all.”

He added: “Our black, Muslim and Jewish citizens will sleep much less easily now the BBC has legitimised the BNP by treating its racist poison as the views of just another mainstream political party when it is so uniquely evil and dangerous.”

However, Mark Byford, BBC deputy director-general, insisted it had been “appropriate” to invite Mr Griffin, whose appearance was due to the fact his party won two seats in the European Parliament.

“The audience asked the kind of tough questions that mark Question Time out as the premier programme where the public put panellists on the spot,” he said.