I came as little surprise to discover on the programme that Griffin is racist, admires Hitler, denies the Holocaust, is friends with Ku Klux Klan members, is Islamophobic, etc. But what people may not have realised, and which was revealed so spectacularly on the programme, is what a political lightweight he is. He was completely out of his depth, his arguments were feeble. He exhibited all the signs of someone who is nervous and unused to speaking in public, with the way he smirked and laughed nervously throughout and how he attacked Jack Straw right at the beginning, when the debate had barely even begun. Racists and bigots will always vote for parties such as the BNP, that’s a fact. However, the party’s recent gains have been due to them presenting themselves as a respectable party with a range of policies on different subjects. Hopefully people who may have been temped to vote for them will now realise that there is no depth to the party at all, nothing behind the racist venir. No policies, just prejudice.

Realising that the programme was a disaster for his party, Nick Griffin is now complaining about the make-up of the studio audience, and the questions that were put to him, claiming that it was “not a genuine Question Time”. I don’t think his claim is valid at all. A few members of the audience did clap following Griffin’s contributions, and a couple of those who spoke voiced opinions at least partially similar to his own. This reflects the population as a whole, where only a small minority agree with the BNP’s views. Certainly, if the programme had been recorded in Burnley, as he suggested, he might have found the audience more supportive, but that’s becasue it’s one of the small minority of areas of the country where his party have had any electoral success. Question Time is a national programme, so having an audience with such a high proportion of BNP supporters, not at all reflecting the rest of the country, would have been the type of extreme bias the BBC strives to avoid. As with certain other obnoxious minority organisations, the BNP and its followers like to delude themselves that everyone in the country shares their view. However, outside of their meetings and online discussion forums, this is simply a fantasy. Apparently, after the show, the Question Time website was flooded with support for Nick Griffin. This is hardly surprising. No doubt they were mobilised by websites, forums and messages, and encouraged to write in support of their leader. Again, they do like to delude themselves and say, “Look, everyone agrees with us!”

As for the questions, these are always chosen by the Question Time studio audience. If this time the audience wanted most of the questions to be about the BNP and its policies, it isn’t the programme’s producers’ place to prevent that. If the programme wasn’t a genuine Question Time, that’s because one if its panellists wasn’t a genuine politician, and the audience knew that.

Various and figures and statistics will now be twisted to suit the agenda of whoever is writing about them. The BNP will claim they gained extra members. Others will claim it was a disaster for them. I can’t really see that it will do the BNP any good in electoral terms. Eight million people watched, but that means the majority of people didn’t. So who did watch? Probably people who either support the BNP already, or who totally oppose what they stand for and wanted to see Griffin made a fool of. Even if some of the former group have now decided to join the BNP, they would have voted for them anyway. As for all the working-class people in places such a Burnley, they probably have little interest in politics, so will have been among the 40 million or so adults who didn’t watch. So their votes won’t have been influenced at all.

In conclusion, I don’t think this programme will have much effect on people’s voting either way. A more serious issue is that more people are voting for the BNP (in most cases, uninformed people who don’t watch Question Time) simply because they are disillusioned with the mainstream parties. Some of the senior politicians, in particular in the Labour Party, should try concentrating their energies into doing something about this, rather than protesting about a TV programme. That’s the real way to beat the BNP.

The Last Night used to end with Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs. While rarely played outside of the Proms, the piece provides the perfect opportunity for the prommers to join in: pretending to cry into handkerchiefs during one section, attempting to keep up with the orchestra in another, and humming along in another. It also concludes with See the Conquering Hero Comes, the perfect accompaniment to the entrance of the singer performing Rule Britannia. Unfortunately, in recent years, the BBC decided that the Fantasia was inappropriate to play at the Last Night as the tunes it contains only came from English songs. They added some Welsh, Irish and Scottish tunes, which would have been fine, only instead of adding short orchestral segments as in the original part of the Fantasia, they added songs sung by children’s choirs, broadcast by video links from “Proms in the Park” events from across the UK. This spun out the Fantasia into a work more than twice its former length, which did make it drag on a bit. Last year, the Fantasia was omitted from the programme for, it was said at the time, one year only, so that it could be replaced with sea songs by Vaughan Williams on his anniversary. Unfortunately, the BBC didn’t keep their word, as the Fantasia was missing from tonight’s programme. If I’d queued up for a whole day for a ticket to the Last Night, I’d feel cheated if the programme didn’t contain the Fantasia on British Sea Songs.

However, the end of the concert still had one redeeming feature: Jerusalem. Now to be honest, the words have never meant much to me – fancy naming a patriotic song after a city in a foreign country, especially one that, let’s face it, isn’t in a particularly stable part of the world, and certainly not one that any other country would aspire to become. As for the tune, I find it slightly dull, dreary even. But what made Jerusalem a great ending to the Last Night was Edward Elgar’s orchestration. With its crashing chords and soaring strings, Elgar’s score makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up in a way that Parry and Blake alone fail to do. Unfortunately, this year the programmers saw fit to replace Elgar’s version with one by Parry himself. I was actually pleasantly surprised that Parry’s version wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, yet somehow it still sounded like it should be played by a school orchestra, not as the finale to one of the world’s most famous concert series. There is a reason why Elgar is one of Britain’s most famous composers and Parry is not.

The Last Night of the Proms is watched and listened to by millions of people around the world. Its second half is the only part of the Proms to be broadcast on the BBC’s primary British TV station, BBC One, so is the only part likely to be seen by the wider public. Removing traditional, fun elements from the end of the concert does nothing to encourage them to explore classical music further. So please, BBC, revive the Fantasia – in its original form it would hardly take up much time in the concert – and please go back to Elgar’s wonderful arrangement of Jerusalem that has always brought the concert to a fitting close. Otherwise, why not just go the whole hog and fill the arena with chairs for the Last Night?

Imagine if a documentary series that usually draws a small audience showed a programme about a religion which some followers objected to. With the power of the internet, they could soon persuade plenty of others to send in complaints. Also, outside of broadcasting, suppose for example that I object to neighbours being allowed to disturb each other with excessive noise. If I read about such a case in the newspaper, can I then complain to the Environmental Health department about it, despite living in a different town and never having experienced the disturbance for myself? As much as I might hate noise, even if I heard a recording on the radio, I wouldn’t know what it sounded like above the ambient noise, and I wouldn’t know any background to the case. Clearly people should only complain about things they’ve experienced first-hand.

What had probably driven such a large number of people to complain is the sudden realisation of the sort of content that it being paid for by the Licence Fee. So why didn’t any of the original listeners to the show complain? It seems the mainly young audience don’t see anything wrong with swearing and making lewd remarks on the phone to an elderly man, or with publicising sordid details of a woman’s private life. And why don’t they see anything wrong? Because they are continually exposed to this sort of behaviour every day on TV and radio.

When Andrew Sachs appeared in Fawlty Towers in the 70s, John Cleese played Basil Fawlty, a hotel manager who was rude and unpleasant to guests, for its comic value. However, not only was it fiction, the character of Basil Fawlty was a good model of how not to behave, and not to be a good hotel manager, which was what made it so funny. Today, however, so-called comedians see the need to be foul-mouthed and rude to real people, but they are not laughed at as fools because they are behaving improperly, but rather their victims are laughed at. The likes of Ross and Brand are considered role models by young people, who will go on to copy them when they are out in the street. No wonder our society is becoming what it is.

The BBC needs to stop paying what is effectively public money to the likes of Brand (£200,000) and Ross (£6 million). Brand has already resigned. I’ve never seen what’s so great about Jonathan Ross: he’s an untalented and irritating presenter at the best of times, who seemingly got where he is simply through having a speech impediment, so this latest incident would be a good excuse to get rid of him. A lot of the blame must also fall on the editor who decided to broadcast what was a pre-recorded show. And if Ofcom does fine the BBC, how about subtracting the fine from next year’s Licence Fee, rather than it going to the treasury? The fact that each household would only receive a rebate of a few pence just illustrates how pointless this sort of fine is when any big organisation is involved, but at least it would eliminate the often-raised complaint that Licence Fee payers were effectively paying the fine.

Yesterday evening, I was reading an article, ‘Half’ unaware of smoke ban date, which claimed that many people are confused about the long overdue ban on smoking in public places in England. To the right-hand side of the article, under the heading “Across the UK”, the first link was to an article from 2005, How UK smoke bans differ. At the time the article was written, the government was considering a less comprehensive ban in England which would still have allowed smoking in “pubs not serving food” and in private members’ clubs, despite the fact that the other parts of the UK would have total bans. Fortunately, this proposal, which would have seen England becoming the dirty man of Europe where smoking is concerned, was voted out by parliament, so from 1 July, England will have a comprehensive ban as in the rest of the UK.

Unfortunately, because of all the confusion and coverage of the original proposals, many people still think that smoking will be allowed in some pubs and clubs. I thought the BBC’s inclusion of a prominent link to an outdated article unhelpful, as it would only add to people’s misunderstanding. I sent a quick note to the BBC website, and was half surprised to find today that they had removed the link as I’d suggested.

BBC error or revealing quotation?

On a previous occasion, I contacted the BBC website after it published an article on concerns about wi-fi networks in schools. It quotes a teacher, Michael Bevington, who claims that exposure to wi-fi in the school where he works has made him sensitive to other sources of electro-magnetic radiation. The story listed satellite navigation systems as one of the things that affected him.

Now, as I’ve discussed before, traditional satnav systems do not transmit anything, they simply pick up the weak signals from satellites and use these to calculate the current position. If anyone claimed “radiation” from a satnav made them ill, that would only show the the ill effects were all in the mind.

I left a comment to this effect via the form at the end of the article. That was back in December. I only remembered about it a couple of weeks ago, when the technology commentator, Bill Thompson, wrote an article, also on the BBC website, about how fears over wi-fi lack credibility. This prompted me to go back and find the earlier article. I discovered that there was no mention of satellite navigation. Was it the wrong article, or had I imagined the whole thing? Luckily, back in December someone had copied the article into a post on a discussion forum, so the original version is preserved. It clearly reads:

Like a number of other schools, Stowe has turned off some of its transmitters. But Mr Bevington says he is now sensitive to other sources of electro-magnetic radiation, such as phones, microwaves, fluorescent lights and in-car satellite navigation. He also has problems with city centre hotspots and his neighbours’ wi-fi networks.

The BBC moderators did not approve my comment for inclusion at the end of the article, but they did remove any mention of satellite navigation. (Of course, as usual, they didn’t thank me or notify me.) This leaves me to wonder whether Mr Bevington did mention satnav systems, or whether this was added by the BBC themselves – something that makes a big difference to the credibility of Mr Bevington’s claims (if only the difference between unlikely and totally ridiculous). But it’s something that’s likely only ever to be known by himself and the BBC’s editors.

Everyone using one of these services to download video must give over part of their internet connection for uploading the files to other people. Now, on one of the so-called illegal networks, this seems fair enough: everyone who downloads then uploads to give something back to the community. Everyone gives a little, meaning the files can be distributed for free. With the “legal” services, however, users are paying for the content, but are still having to upload the files for other customers. Imagine buying a DVD from an online store, but when it arrives, you find there are a couple of other DVDs in the package that you must deliver to addresses in the neighbourhood. This is exactly what customers of the legal download sites are being asked to do.

Sky by broadband and the Integrated Media Player service that the BBC trialled both use a peer-to-peer application called Kontiki. Sky provide a FAQ page for users of their service, and one point in particular is worth examining:

Q: If Sky is using my PC to help distribute media files to other people, will my ISP charge me for this?

A: … Most ISPs only impose limits for the amount of data you download… not on data which is uploaded. These limits will only impact the number and size of videos that you want to download from Sky by broadband.

Most ISPs now limit the amount of data that can be transferred in a month, meaning that customers effectively pay per gigabyte transferred. But do they only measure downloads, or uploads too? Here’s what major ISP BT say about it:

Q: What is a monthly usage guideline?

A: This is the total amount of data you can send (upload) and receive (download) through your broadband connection each month.

This means that you are in effect paying to send the videos to other users. As the Kontiki software is installed automatically, runs in the background, and can’t be configured by the user, whenever the PC is switched on, the user’s precious monthly quota will be eaten up as the software sends the videos on.

Admittedly, both the Sky and BBC services are currently “free” for people who already pay subscriptions (in the case of the BBC, the licence fee). However, the movie industry plan to use the same model to distribute paid-for video to customers. Legal music download sites are becoming more popular, but video remains a problem for the industry due to the huge investment in infrastructure required to distribute the content. So the industry has had the smart idea of making the customers pay for the infrastructure, in addition to paying for the content in the first place: in effect, paying twice. From the BBC article:

Jonathan Arber, an analyst at Ovum, said [the peer-to-peer network] Velocix could prove attractive to net service firms as it reduced the amount of bandwidth they had to pay for.

So who do people think is paying for the bandwidth instead?

Of course, I haven’t even touched on the fact that legal downloads come with the dreaded digital rights management (DRM), meaning they can only be played on one computer, kept for 30 days then deleted, and can’t be played without Microsoft’s expensive and proprietary software. But that’s another story best left for another day.

The company behind Velocix “hopes its technology will start to wean people off illegal use of file-sharing networks.” Unfortunately, this is likely to to be the case, as once downloading films becomes mainstream, the average consumer won’t realise they are paying twice for the same thing.

For the benefit of anyone not familiar with British radio, I should explain that Radio 4 is purely a speech radio station. Whole pieces of music are never played on the station, and even on the famous programme “Desert Island Discs”, where a celebrity chooses his or her favourite music, only short excerpts are played. So for me, the appeal of the UK Theme lies in the fact that it was five minutes of uninterrupted music, a moment of calm before the usual business of the day.

Composer Fritz Spiegl (1926–2003) was born in Austria to a Jewish family, and escaped to Britain in 1939 after facing persecution by the Nazis. As a 13 year old boy in England, he didn’t speak a word of English. But as is often the case, he would eventually come to care more about the language and culture of his adopted country than most of the people who were born here. A true polymath, Spiegl became principal flautist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, but also wrote books and newspaper columns, usually about language. He found it difficult to understand how the English could know so little about their mother tongue.

The UK Theme is a medley of traditional British tunes that, though clever use of counterpoint, manages to squeeze many tunes into exactly five minutes – the length of the time-slot it occupied on radio. It begins with a brass fanfare of the first few bars of Early One Morning, and English folk song. This is followed by Rule Britannia. There is then a slight drop in tempo, but not enough to lose momentum, and a tender rendition of the Londonderry Air (representing Northern Ireland) on the cor anglais. After the first eight bars, this is joined by the violin playing the Scottish Annie Laurie. The side drum announces the start of What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor? played on the piccolo, the inclusion of which perhaps showing that Spiegl was not without a sense of humour. After the first verse, this is then combined with Greensleeves played on the strings. Another drum roll introduces a brass rendition of Men of Harlech (now probably best known for being sung, with modified lyrics, by Welsh soldiers in the film Zulu). The woodwind then play Flower of Scotland in counterpoint. After this, Spiegl clearly decided Men of Harlech was too good to waste, so the chorus of the song continues alone. There is then a brief reprise of the opening fanfare, this time leading to a gentle version of Early One Morning played in full. Rule Britannia is then brought in one more time, starting on the strings and building up to the full orchestra. In the last few bars, a solo trumpet can be heard playing a phrase evocative of Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary.

Spiegl’s music brings together the four home nations of the United Kingdom. It is quite patriotic in its tone, but not in an overbearing way. In the 1970s, it took a man born in Austria to write the music. Today, I can’t imagine it being commissioned at all. I only hope the nation Spiegl so loved doesn’t one day go the same way as his theme tune.

• Listen to the UK Theme
• Matt cartoon