Sunday Express stands by Kilroy-Silk
The editor of The Sunday Express has defended the controversial remarks of TV chat host Robert Kilroy-Silk, stating there would be no apologies.
Martin Townsend said Mr Kilroy-Silk was not a racist and neither was he.
In his column entitled: “We owe the Arabs nothing”, which prompted the BBC to axe his 17-year long morning chat show, Mr Kilroy-Silk wrote: “What do (Arabs) think we feel about them? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors?”
The article originally appeared in April 2003, to little or no sign of public outrage, but was reprinted by “mistake” last week in his column for the Sunday paper after his secretary sent the wrong e-mail attachment.
Mr Townsend said: “Robert Kilroy-Silk is paid to be provocative. I feel comfortable standing by the column, because I believe passionately that he has the right to free speech. He is not a racist, nor am I. And it incenses me that the word ‘racism’ is bandied about like a political hand-grenade to silence debate.”
Mr Townsend’s pledge not to drop Mr Kilroy-Silk’s column will bring some relief to the former Labour MP as he will lose £200,000 a year if his chat show is not reinstated.
The editor of the paper said the BBC has acted “disgracefully” by “strongly disassociated itself” from the controversy.
“Their behaviour has the whiff of McCarthyism about it,” he said.
Mr Kilroy-Silk said last night: “I do believe very firmly in the right of free speech. I was exercising that right.”
“I regret that I have caused any offence. Did I condemn all Arabs? No, I clearly did not. The evidence says that. Do I regret causing offence? Yes, of course I do.
“There is an enormous amount of intellectual and political bullying going on in this country, where ordinary, decent good people who have strong points of view don’t feel any more that they can express them.”
Fellow TV presenter Richard Madeley said Mr Kilroy-Silk had not said anything offensive and called for his show to be put back on air.
He said: “The only explanation I can come up with is that someone at the Beeb wants him out. The treatment of Kilroy by the BBC is nothing short of disgraceful.”
