For once I agree with Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips is often too acerbic, too censorious for my catholic Anglican mind. However, I find that I am in agreement on occasions with many that I mostly disagree with.

This is one occasion. She says this, in her Daily Mail column, about the BNP and Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time.

"Alas, despite all the uproar, his opponents have settled upon the wrong strategy. And the reason they have got it wrong is precisely why Griffin has made the headway that he has. In a democracy, politicians from distasteful but lawfully constituted political parties - and the BNP is a legal organisation, with two MEPs - should not have their views suppressed but taken on and defeated in argument. But to do so, the positions they take and the source of their appeal have to be honestly acknowledged."

It is precisely because Peter Hain and his ilk have no clue about acknowledging how the BNP got nearly a million votes in June that the BNP succeeds. If Hain is so politically closet-ridden that he cannot "take on and defeat the BNP in argument" he should SHUT UP and let those that are going to do it DO IT!