A room full of angry people, one of them covered in spit

Batten down the hatches, the militant homosexuals are coming! They’re going to round people up, teach their kids about being gay and force you at gun point to watch men kiss.

At least that’s what I’ve learnt militant homosexuals do, I’d never heard of them until Nick Griffin blurted out the term on Question Time.

But having seen the light, I’m now hoarding Will and Grace DvDs in the hope of tricking any militant homosexuals who come to get me into thinking I’m on their side.

Putting that weird glimpse into Griffin’s mind, and his sweaty, hand-wringing nervousness aside, the BNP leader held his own just about as well as he could have done.

That is, he did as well as he could have done defending indefensible racism in a room filled with people that wanted to parade his severed head on a pole around television centre.

Tonight’s show was always going to be a fight between two things – on one side a chance to spit at Nick Griffin, and on the other an opportunity to expose him as a racist while making incisive points about how it is the BNP have had electoral success.

As I suspected by the end of the show Griffin was drenched in spittle.

There were, however, just about enough moments to make it worth it – Griffin struggling with his holocaust denial and inappropriately joking about the Ku Klux Klan or Dimbleby pointing out the fake, palatable language used by the BNP.

The thing is Griffin’s attack on immigration policy, on the Iraq War and on UK Muslims – couched in this palatable language – will ring true with some people in the UK.

When these points were raised the mainstream politicians needed to break from the spitfest and engage. Jack Straw failed miserably, his hands tied by the fact that he can’t concede Labour immigration policy has been a mess.

Chris Huhne and Baroness Warsi called Straw out and then made tentative attempts to “square up” to the issue of immigration, something which is easier to do from opposition.

Baroness Warsi did at least highlight the issues of deprivation and poverty, and Huhne the disconnection from the political class, as factors in the BNP’s rise.

These issues could have used a bit more time. But with so much spit to get out – it was positively bubbling from some audience members – it was never going to happen.