At 8.30 last Friday evening, smooth media compere David Jacobs ushered a group of VIPs onto the stage of the United Reformed Church in Basingstoke to do battle in the radio programme Any Questions.
But 15 minutes later historv had beer made. A dozen or so working class members of the audience, backed up • demonstration of 70 militants outside the ChurCh. had denied Enoch Powell means or denverine a muraerous sermon to hundreds of thousands of people.
The "disruption' was caused by members of the audience insisting on their right to put questions and not submit to the BBC's vetting procedure. For exercising this right they were ejected from the hall and the proUnlike Judith Hart, the left Labour MP who chose to trade debating points with him, Powell knows that his presence at the altar of a church on this long running radic programme was itself a reinforcement of his position. Nothing that match the effect of Powell merely being there.
When David Jacobs asked for any questions, he meant any questions within the terms of reference of the BBC. It was a big victory for Basingstoke anti-fascist committee to question Powell's platform on the DrOLl dInnIC Hart said could