Last night's Question Time was a victory for the BBC and all those who said giving the BNP airtime would expose them for what they are. Shame I've been arguing against it.

By Ian Dunt

OK so here's the thing. I never got past this sentence: For the free society to exist, it must take away the freedom of those who wish to destroy it. It sounds contradictory, but I think it's entirely coherent and true. It's logical. I've had problems before by deriving too many of my day-to-day political judgements by reference to a logical or moral principle, and I'm beginning to think my attitude to the BNP was a victim of the same habit.

I've lost count of how many hours I've argued with friends abut giving the BNP airtime. I agreed when they objected to the terrible mess of having a legal party treated as if it was illegal. We were turning the BNP into the tobacco of the political world, both of them existing in this weird nether-region of legality. Friends would say: 'We need to either make them illegal or treat them like any other political party. And I thought: 'Yes; we'll make them illegal.' Fascism is a cancer at the heart of the human condition. If it exists it will act to cancel freedom. Giving it freedom is not proof of freedom's ultimate victory, it is freedom cancelling itself, like a child playing with a gun.

But his performance today on Question Time must surely have destroyed Nick Griffin's reputation for good. It's difficult to imagine any undecided voter going for him now, and easy to imagine many previous voters changing their mind. His nervous laughter - even at statements which were explicitly attacking him - came across as terrified and childlike. His denial of quotes and situations from the past, even when backed by video evidence, made him look mildly deranged. His grasp of political issues was borderline non-existent. And he was called up for making up facts on several occasions. You couldn't have asked for a more efficient dressing down.

At one point he said European laws prevented him from expressing his opinion on the Holocaust. Beside him, Jack Straw shouted (he didn't shout, but he spoke loudly and for Jack Straw that's shouting) about how no such law applies here in the UK. Griffin had taken his standard level of debate - innuendo and vaguely alluded conspiracy - and tried to use it while sitting next to the secretary of state for justice. He was literally making up a law while sitting next to the man responsible for Britain's legal system. I'm no friend of Straw. His comments on the hijab, just after helping take the country to war in Iraq, contributed to the exact political climate the BNP have been able to exploit. But Griffin was playing way outside of his league here. He was playing with the big boys, and they wiped the floor with him.

I do have one concern though. We've made a big deal out of Griffin because of this sense that the recession and the expenses scandal could combine to do something to the national psyche that can't be fixed. Now we see him clearer, as a bumbling, mean-spirited fool. A sad little fascist. But there are many smarter fascists than that, and far more charismatic fascists too. Just look at Jörg Haider. Now we've set the precedent that these kind of people are allowed on mainstream political television, it won't take long before one comes along who can do a proper PR job on the BNP, or whichever splinter group is dominating at the time. This can't all just come down to Griffin's ineptitude.

And yet. Sitting here now, it was just too pleasant to sit back and watch this nasty little racist get torn apart by the people of the real Great Britain. It was like the Chablis of political television.

I usually pride myself on my faith in the basic sense and sentiment of the British people. There's something fundamentally contradictory about the combination of fascism and the British character. It's just not our cup of tea. Perhaps I should have spent more time remembering that, rather than my logical principles.