THE liberal arguments put forward by Helen Robb in favour of allowing the BNP to appear on Question Time were expressed eloquently.

Helen seems to be suggesting that by allowing the BNP to air their obnoxious racist views they will be exposed and will suffer a decline in support as a result.

However, the reality is different. The core membership of the BNP, such as Griffin, is made up of ex-National Front members with a past history of neo-Nazism.

Griffin himself has stood on the same platform as a leader of the murderous Ku Klux Klan and once described the murder of six million Jews as the “Holohoax”.

Today, the BNP try to present a more respectable image and their public utterances tone down their extreme race hatred.

But the BNP are liars.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hitler also reined in the extremists in the Nazi Party.

The brown shirt uniform was put aside and the morning suit worn instead. Hitler and his lieutenants, such as Goebbels, were given a free run in the liberal media with political opponents debating with them.

On taking power, Goebbels closed down all press freedom and many of those who had debated with the Nazis vanished into to concentration camps.

John Gilmore, Bishop Auckland.