Ms Echo, I was responding to your post of 12 Aug 09 - 07:05 PM in which you said, "It's not "constructive criticism" to seek to modify such a basic fact [the evils of fascism] under the guise of claiming that the FAF launch "should have got to the point quicker"" which I took to be in answer to my own post of 12 Aug 09 - 06:46 PM.

Let me be clear - the event was clearly a great success, and congratulations to the organisers. However at least one person left early because the message wasn't put across sooner. That's one person lost to the cause, who may not have been had the event been structured slightly differently. In what way is it unhelpful, let alone insulting, to point that out?

It's usual these days at many types of event to invite feedback from the audience to help the organisers to refine their message - indeed, filling in a feedback form has become a slightly tiresome ritual at the end of every conference or training session. Whether the feedback advice is followed is another matter. The organisers of FAF may feel that, overall, the balance of the event was right and attracted more interest than it lost - that's a judgement for them to make. But to jump on someone merely for offering feedback, which has been the overwhelming response, and to equate their suggestions with denial of the evils of fascism seems to me, to use one of your favourite words, "bonkers".

Here's another suggestion, which I hope won't appear too unhelpful or insulting: I was surprised to see Ruth Archer's admission that the BBC hadn't been sent a media release and had picked up on the event from Facebook. With the greatest respect, that seems like a bit of an oversight which the organisers might think about remedying for the next event.