Can someone explain to me why Robert Kilroy Silk appears to be universally disliked?

[DumbledoresGirl]

I don't get it. I am not one for daytime tv, but I used to enjoy his morning chat show on the occasions I watched it and was moved by his compassion for some of the guests at times.

Then he fell from grace. I think he made a bit of a Daily Mail-type comment but I can't be sure. I know he then was connected to UKIP which I suppose people see as akin to the BNP, but as far as I know, that is all he has done wrong.

Can someone explain if there is more to it than that or have I summed up his crimes? Because it seems to me he is universally disliked and saying a nice word about him is like saying Hitler fed baby birds in spring.

And, tbh, I don't get it.

[akhems]

I liked him too when he had that morning programme but he's not coming across very well in the jungle, quite a lot of nasty attitude and comments towards the other people there etc, I think that's what it is.

[Lizzylou]

I think it is because he is an arrogant d*ck.

Have seen on TV ages ago with regard to his MEP status and new political party and he was truly awful.

My Mom always fancied him though.

[DumbledoresGirl]

I haven't got round to watching "I'm a celebrity" this time round yet but I will make sure I watch it before he gets kicked off.

But no, it is not just to do with how he is being this week. The hatred of him began years ago and I am wondering if I missed something really major because it seems to me he was once a well-liked person.

Thinking about it, did he have an affair?

[blunt]

Message deleted

[tiredemma]

wasnt he really racist about something a few years ago?

(off to have a mooch on web)

[solidgoldbrass]

He's an orange-faced knob who thinks he knows everything.
Mind you, I got the better of him more than once when being on his crappy show (which never paid anyone grr).

[SheikYerbouti]

Oooh, SGB - you were on Kilroy?

[tiredemma]

here from wikipedia

Arab comment controversy
The BBC cancelled the Kilroy show in 2004 after an article entitled 'We owe Arabs nothing' by Kilroy-Silk[9] was published in the Sunday Express. The article had originally been published in April 2003 by the same paper and 'republished in error' according to Kilroy-Silk.[citation needed] On its first publication the article did not attract the same furore from the national press or provoke any known disciplinary action from the BBC. One passage reads:

? We're told that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis? For subsidising the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name but two, for giving them vast amounts of aid? For providing them with science, medicine, technology and all the other benefits of the West? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States. What do they 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?' ?

The article was strongly condemned by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Commission for Racial Equality, whose head, Trevor Phillips, said that the affair could have a "hugely unhelpful" effect. Faisal Bodi, a columnist for The Guardian, called for Kilroy-Silk to be prosecuted for incitement to racial hatred. He said that Kilroy-Silk had written statements critical of Muslims in 1989, during the Salman Rushdie affair and in a 1995 article in the Daily Express.[10] By contrast Ibrahim Nawar, the head of Arab Press Freedom Watch came out in support of Kilroy-Silk in a Daily Telegraph article, calling him "an advocate of freedom of expression" and saying that he agreed with much of what Kilroy-Silk had said about Arab regimes. [11]

There was speculation that the controversy could affect Sunday Express owner Richard Desmond's attempt to acquire the Daily Telegraph, which was later dropped for unrelated reasons.[citation needed]

Labour MP Andrew Dismore asked why the BBC had disciplined Kilroy-Silk but had not moved against Tom Paulin after he had made allegedly anti-semitic remarks. The BBC's defenders pointed out that Paulin appeared on BBC programmes only as a pundit and commentator, and was not employed as a presenter of a programme in his own right. Subsequent to losing his permanent position, Kilroy-Silk appeared on BBC programmes in the same capacity as Paulin, as an individual commentator no longer representative of the BBC.

According to the Daily Express, 50,000 people responded in a telephone poll supporting Kilroy-Silk's reinstatement.

On 4 December 2004 a man threw a bucket of farmyard manure over Kilroy before he was due to make an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions?. David McGrath, from Wilmslow, Cheshire, was later convicted of the attack. He was given a conditional discharge, and ordered to pay £200 costs to Kilroy-Silk.

A spokeswoman for Kilroy-Silk told The Observer, "He is not a racist at all - he employs a black driver," she told The Observer, a quote which is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Kilroy-Silk himself.[12]

[edit] Marks & Spencer

[SheikYerbouti]

Here are his comments:

"We're told that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis? For subsidising the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name but two, for giving them vast amounts of aid? For providing them with science, medicine, technology and all the other benefits of the West? They should go down on their knees and thank God for the munificence of the United States. What do they 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?'"

[forevercleaningdogploppers]

He's always been a complete knob.

[forevercleaningdogploppers]

and i am very much looking forward to seeing him suffer in tonights bushtucker trial. Espesh after being so pissed off that others didnt win theirs.

The pressure is on him big time...

[Fiveplusbump]

Whenever I hear his name I get a horrible little shuddery feeling .

[Tillyscoutsmum]

He's been married for 48 years and has 2 dc's with his wife, but also has a son as a result of an affair in the 1980's

[RTKangaMummy]

The editing of IACGMOOH has decided to edit him into baddie and jo swash as goodie

i know you can only edit what comes out of their mouths but showing about 20 mins from 24 hours

I used to watch him on tv too

I wish they showed IACGMOOH 24/7 on ITV4 or ITV2 during our nightime cos then we could make an informed decision on their character

[AuraofDora]

he's an egotistical knob with views (and a tad too orange)

his show gave me shudders
sgb..am surprised they didnt charge audience for being in his orange presence

[DumbledoresGirl]

Come on sgb, you can't make a comment like that and not explain more!

Oh ok, I agree, he did write a crass article.

But I still remember his compassion and humanity and like him for that.

Will have to watch I'm a celebrity to see what he is like now, and quickly before he gets voted off as it sounds like he might be first to go!

[expatinscotland]

joe put it best.

he's a dickhead.

[DumbledoresGirl]

Is it really the case that people judge someone on one aspect of their character? I find that very depressing.

[expatinscotland]

his whole character is dickhead, though, DG.

[charitygirl]

huh - never bought his compassionate act on his show TBH. He was also self-aggrandising, bombastic, and know it all. A kind of less extreme, proto-Jeremy Kyle. I think that is when the dislike started.

I LOATHE the pompous, selfcongratulatory prick.

[booge]

He's a nob.

[MrsMattie]

Because he's a twat.

I dislike his poloitics these days.

He is a smarmy, smug, supremely arrogant and generally totally unlikeable man.

Yuck.

[cornsilk]

I wonder about that tan, it looks weird. Could he be suffering from some kind of skin condition like Michael Jackson?

[DumbledoresGirl]

But he isn't expat. I agree his views on Muslims are not pleasant, and I wouldn't buy fake tan either, but my memory of him was that he was a caring man. He talked about things many admirable men of my knowledge (thinking of my husband first and foremost!) would never talk about. He held people's hands while they cried, he made ugly old women feel good about themselves and flirted with young and old outrageously (I mean that as a compliment). There were many lovely aspects to his character. I don't think they were fake, put on for the cameras, but I could be wrong about that. Still, if it was an act, it was a soothing and beneficial act. His programme was popular in its day. I think it is sad that one so loved has become so reviled.

I hope people don't treat me like that.

[DumbledoresGirl]

Oh and btw, I hate many people's politics but find I can be very good friends with them.

And I like arrogance in men so maybe that is why I don't understand the revulsion!