Cheap Paxman English Defence League jibe

Monday's Newsnight contained an interview between Paxo and Stephen Lennon - head of the ultra nationalist English Defence League.

The premise was some extremely dodgy research that led the BBC to claim that Norway mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik had links to the EDL because he posted on various websites (including Facebook) in praise of them.

Paxo's attempted hatchet job on Lennon backfired completely (and it started pretty poorly due to the paucity of the evidence presented) when he ended by claiming that Lennon and the EDL were threatening a similar slaughter in the UK because of Lennon's closing remark that 'I think we're five years away from that happening here, or 10 years, of English lads doing that because of the desperation they're in'.

It's not available on i-player yet - but catch it when you can (and I'll try and link it when it is available). You can catch it here.

The leftish bias of the BBC does itself no favours when it behaves like this. I don't have any time for the policies of EDL - but they are representative of a section of white, working class opinion that should not be ignored. It particularly should not be ridiculed and defamed by multi-millionaire public sector workers like Paxman.

The BBC needs to put its student union trotskyism to one side and deal with issues of race, religion and the homegrown dispossed in a more grown up and sensitive way.