I AM loathe to talk about Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, in this column because I do not want to give him, or his party, free publicity.

But after his appearance on BBC2's Newsnight on Tuesday, I feel obliged to point out the flaws in his arguments and how worrying - even dangerous - I find the rise of his party which won 16 per cent of the vote in the Oldham West constituency at the General Election.

Mr Griffin was the candidate, and the last time I saw him on television was on election night, when he was bouncing around on the stage in a T-shirt with his mouth covered in tape as the Returning Officer announced the result.

He had clearly undergone a makeover for Newsnight, tidily dressed and speaking in a calm, rational way. In fact, it was the interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, who appeared to lose his cool as he found Mr Griffin's views increasingly abhorrent.

Mr Griffin told how he wants to ethnically cleanse Britain's housing estates, so Asians and people with coloured skins live in one area and the whites live in another. Walls will be built between the two areas.

At worst, this sounds like apartheid which, far from solving anything in South Africa, unleashed even greater bloodshed. At best, as Mr Griffin said, this sounds like the "peace lines" drawn up in Northern Ireland which separate Catholics from Protestants. But it will solve nothing in Oldham or Burnley - and the forthcoming marching season in Ulster will show that the separation of neighbouring communities does not make them peaceful.

Mr Griffin was not able to explain his policy on repatriation - some Asians are third-generation British and so can only be repatriated to Bradford - and it was clear that he sees colour of skin as the prime distinguishing feature. A white Polish immigrant, he said, could live in the white British enclave, but a coloured immigrant would go into the Asian settlement. Although he denies it, Mr Griffin is a racist.

Then, in a classic divide and conquer move, Mr Griffin said Burnley is not suffering an Asian problem - it is suffering a Muslim problem. Anyone who has visited the Mosque in Middlesbrough, as I have, will know that Islam is a multi-racial religion. True, it is predominantly Asian but I saw Chinese, Turks, Arabs, people from the former Yugoslavia and even white-skinned people there.

I cannot believe this is what the majority of British people want. I cannot believe it is even what 16 per cent of British people want. The future is not about us living behind barbed wire fences in fear of our neighbours. It is about all of us pulling together to eradicate the common problems that I suspect are at the root of the unrest in North-West England: poverty, lack of decent schools or job prospects and a breakdown in law and order.

I MADE a difficult speech recently to Spennymoor Amateur Boxing Club. It was in a marquee with torrential rain slamming into the canvas, large heaters blowing noisily and a microphone that kept cutting out.

I agreed to take part in their prize-giving because I believe in what they do. They provide children with discipline, with determination. They also keep them off the streets. Plus my father is an avid boxing fan, and would want me to do anything that helped the sport.

I found the boxers, the organisers and the majority of the audience were warm and polite. But a small minority took against me - because I was a representative of law and order - and I wonder whether it is this small minority that ensures boxing has a poor reputation.

Anyway, the most telling remark of the whole evening came from one of the organisers who said the good thing about being in boxing is that there is a blue corner and a red corner - and colour doesn't come into it.

Published: 28/06/2001