Britain is full up they say. Have they never been to Scotland?

Emma Byrne writes in her blog, Colemanballs, that the message of the BNP 'reaches the ears of the public, not across the debating chambers of Westminster, but across doorways and gardens in local constituencies'.

It's a fine point and one which supports my argument in the post of February 3, 'Free speech and the shaven-headed mob'. Those who say we should deny the BNP a platform of expression are missing the point.

Their popularity is growing, not because we allow them to express their views, but precisely because most newspapers, television stations and other forums for debate do not.

All this does is drive xenophobia and racial hatred into the arena of clandestine conversations in the gardens and social clubs of middle England.

Only by letting these people expose themselves as the bigoted ignorami they are can we ensure their opinions continue to be regarded as unacceptable.

Blagging and blogging

Last night's talk on blogging by Danny Finkelstein at the Adam Smith Institute was a melee of free-flowing ideas and champagne.

Daunted as i was by a room full of free market libertarians, i struggled on, desperately trying to conceal my namby-pamby Guardian-reading, student credentials.

I had blagged my way in after borrowing an invitation given to my Mum, who was abroad. And as the room began to fill, i found myself in the inner sanctum of the centre-right blogging community.

It sounds like a nightmare combination of geekiness and Toryism, but somehow it turned into an enjoyable evening, as i hobnobbed with top politicians and reporters, although I think Trevor Kavanagh may have been ever so slightly miffed when i asked who he wrote for.

Once the mingling was over and the talk began, Finkelstein had some good points to make, though nothing that i haven't heard before in one form or another. The most significant idea to my mind, was the notion that the blogosphere allows for greater scrutiny of public figures.

It is an attractive prospect that misbehaviour and malpractice can be reported on the blog of any citizen who happens to uncover it. Journalists cannot be everywhere at once (except for some of the more portly ones) and the blogosphere could be an invaluable resource for gathering localised and specific information.

Joe MP now knows that ranting at a waiter in a restaurant, or doing unspeakable things with rent boys (Mark Oaten taken note) can lead to rumour (or indeed fact), spreading across the internet in minutes.

Surely this can only serve to make politics more transparent and MPs more tightly bound to decent behaviour. The real triumph of blogging is that it allows the man on the street to subvert the clandestine mechanisms used by politicians to conceal their wrongdoings.

All of which makes last night's bloggers seem something like a cross between Batman and mother Theresa. Well not quite, but for some well-crafted comment and intellectual bric-a-brac, check out Dodgeblogium, and the blogs of Tim Worstall and Trevor Kavanagh.

And for my fellow tree-hugging pinkos, remember: hardly anyone is ever right, they are just better at arguing.