From the BBC

Deputy director general Mark Byford has said it is not the BBC's role to censor the BNP as criticism mounts ahead of the party's Question Time appearance.

He said the BNP's Euro vote meant the BBC had to allow it on as part of its "responsibility of due impartiality".

Cabinet minister Peter Hain had asked the BBC to rethink its invitation to the whites-only political party.

Ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the BBC would bear moral responsibility for any "spike" in racist attacks.

from the MailOnline

In my research for his unauthorised biography, I accumulated 20 hours of videotaped interviews with Griffin, and many more with his wife, children, parents, minders, political opponents, senior BNP figures and the National Front leaders who shaped his views: John Tyndall and Martin Webster.

Griffin emerges as more than just an odious racist. Yes, he is clever, cunning and capable of delivering his racism through carefully articulated argument.

But he is also dangerous and deranged - a man whose personal Utopia is for every white Briton to embrace national socialism, Griffin-style, and for every non-white Briton to leave these islands.

The BNP accumulated nearly a million votes in the 2009 Euro elections, partly by exploiting Winston Churchill's memory.

But when I asked Griffin if he admired or respected Churchill, he responded curtly: 'Not particularly, no.'

From the Independent

The challenge for his fellow panellists was to pry this limpet of strategic blandness from the rock and expose the unsightly muscle beneath - something they achieved with only variable success. It wasn't for want of trying. Everyone there had come armed with the kind of quotations and associations Griffin doesn't care to have repeated - the platform appearances with Colonel Ghaddafi and Abu Hamza, the embarrassing remarks about the Holocaust and racial purity. Griffin was often feeble in self-exculpation: "I do not have a conviction for Holocaust denial" isn't exactly an indignant repudiation of the charge. But such was the crush to pile in on Griffin that a more forensic dissection of his inconsistencies fell by the wayside in the interests of public avowals of disgust. "Skin colour's irrelevant Jack", he said at one point, eliciting a startled moo from the audience. But there was no follow up on why this notional irrelevance should play such a large part in Mr Griffin's notion of Britishness.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has been denied entry to a Buckingham Palace garden party over claims he "overtly" used his invitation for political purposes.

A spokesman said his behaviour had "increased the security threat and the potential discomfort" to other guests.

But Mr Griffin, who had been invited to the event along with all the UK's Euro MPs, told BBC News the ban was an "absolute scandal".

The anti-immigration party's other MEP, Andrew Brons, is attending the party.

Before the ban was imposed Mr Griffin, an MEP for North West England, described the Buckingham Palace invitation on the BNP website as a "highly symbolic breakthrough" for the party and e-mailed supporters asking for questions they would like him to ask the Queen.

Mr Griffin also appeared on GMTV to talk about his invitation to the garden party.