The BBC defended its decision to include Nick Griffin on Question Time by citing its commitment to political impartiality. Yet, for much of its history, the corporation actively blocked Britain’s most famous far-Right politician from television and radio.

In 1935 the BBC proposed to broadcast a series of talks featuring Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, and the Communist Party leader Harry Pollitt. But the programmes were never made. The Government intervened, claiming that it was “not in the national interest”. Rather than assert its editorial independence, the BBC backed down.

For the next 33 years, Mosley was denied a BBC microphone. Nobody at Broadcasting House was more insistent that the ban should be retained than the Director-General during the 1960s, Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, who ruled that it “would not be right to offer a platform to Sir Oswald Mosley”. An interview with Mosley conducted by Malcolm Muggeridge was duly axed when Greene reaffirmed his stance that Mosley would “come on the air over my dead body”.

Greene, however, was on shaky ground. In 1966 Mosley took exception to a BBC programme which claimed that he had deliberately invoked violence. He argued that damaging assertions were being broadcast about him without his having the right of reply. At first the corporation was unmoved, but then Mosley took his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

At this, Greene backed down and the ex-fascist leader’s first BBC television appearance came in 1968 with an episode of Panorama devoted to him. It attracted 8½ million viewers — a record for the programme at that time.

However, it was Mosley’s first studio interview on ITV in November 1967 that provided the clearest evidence for the reason why banning him was counterproductive. Attempts by the audience to shout him down allowed him to pose as the defender of free speech. But he proceeded to use this freedom to incriminate himself by announcing: “I contend and can prove that I have never been an anti-Semite.” Calmly, the interviewer, David Frost, then read to him a telegram that Mosley had sent the leading Jew-hater and Nazi Gauleiter Julius Streicher in 1935: “The forces of Jewish corruption must be overcome in all great countries before the future of Europe can be made secure in justice and peace. Our struggle is hard but our victory is certain.”

As he attempted to squirm his way out, Mosley looked increasingly ridiculous. When he announced that “In life, always try to do things gently and only get tough when you have to get tough”, Frost cut in. “And with Sir Oswald Mosley’s message, ‘In life always try to do things gently’, we’ll say goodnight.”

Cue: derisive laughter. Roll: credits.

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