angelophile | The great debate

"He was the dazzling young MP with the good looks who was spoken of as a future Labour prime minister.

Instead, Robert Kilroy-Silk left Labour politics in the mid-1980s for a highly paid career in the media.

As the host of Kilroy, BBC1's version of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the television presenter built up a following among housewives for his lively, and often controversial, morning discussion show.

But Kilroy-Silk had a great deal of explaining to do. A vituperative article he wrote in a national newspaper attacking Arabs - and questioning whether they had contributed anything to civilisation - is under investigation by his employers and the police.

The BBC has since suspended Kilroy-Silk his television show.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has referred the article to police for investigation as to whether it incites racial hatred. In the article, headlined "We owe Arabs nothing", Kilroy-Silk scorned the Arab world. It had contributed almost nothing to civilisation, he said, and he referred to Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors".

Complaints were also lodged with the BBC, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Press Complaints Commission.

In his article, Kilroy-Silk began by expressing contempt at the anti-war campaigners of the Iraq war. He said: "What do [Arabs] think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders?

"That we admire them for the cold-blooded killings in Mombasa, Yemen and elsewhere? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors? I don't think the Arab states should start a debate about what is really loathsome."

He suggested that the destruction of the "despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states" and their replacement by democratic governments could be a "war aim".

He said: "After all, the Arab countries are not exactly shining examples of civilisation, are they? Few of them make much contribution to the welfare of the rest of the world.

"Indeed, apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the West - what do they contribute?

"Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without?"

The West had been singled out, he said, despite providing Arabs with science, medicine and technology.

"They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States," he said.

Although the Sunday Express refused to discuss Kilroy-Silk's future, his article invited censure from the wider community.

Ziauddin Sardar, a columnist for the New Statesman, said a continuation of Kilroy-Silk's television show would not reflect well on the BBC. "It is like blaming Yorkshire for the actions of the Yorkshire Ripper and then actually visiting punishment on all of Yorkshire," he said."

Article taken from the Independent on Sunday

This has been in the news for a few days now over here and I'm pretty staggered by it. Not that a journalist wrote such a staggeringly ill informed article, but the fact that there's any debate over whether he should have been suspended by the BBC.

The Express themselves are obviously, and rather stupidly, supporting Kilroy-Silk. They're using the old 'freedom of speech' argument, that he should be allowed to say anything he wants, no matter how stupid, but to suspend him for it is an infringement of his civil liberties. Kilroy-Silk has since suggested that where he said Arabs what he -actually- meant was 'rogue Arab states'. Riiight.

Of course, it's a pretty quiet news week so such a pointless article by a minor television host (whose show is only in the style of Oprah. He can only dream of being anything like as successful) gets blown out of all proportion and makes front page news. The fact is the article was published originally in April without many comments, although it had been pretty heavily edited then.

But anyway, the freedom of speech argument is fine - if this guy wants to say things that make it obvious he's a complete tit of the highest order, that's his perogative. What isn't his perogative is to expect the British Broadcasting Company to continue to pay his wages and give him a forum to express these views. It's not a private company, like the publishers of the Express or a commercial television station. It's funded by the Government with the revenue from television licenses. If Kilroy-Silk's put himself in a position that's alienated the public, when his sole job is to communicate with that public, then he's incapable of doing his job. He shouldn't be given screen time. The BBC has made the right decision in suspending him and it's no doubt only a matter of time before he's laid off entirely, probably when the debate has died down a little. The attitude that we all owe him a living and should respect the views he wishes to express is not one I stand by. I believe in freedom of speech, but the BBC is not a political forum. If he can't keep his views seperate enough from his work that they don't cause problems, then he shouldn't be doing the job in the first place.

Of course, while I stand by his right to say what he wants, it's just shown him up to be a totally ignorant twat. Good riddance to the idiot.

Bah humbug!