Kilroy (television series)

Kilroy is a BBC1 daytime chat show hosted by Robert Kilroy-Silk that began in 8 September 1986 and finished on 29 January 2004 after 18 years. The series was originally called Day to Day for the first two series, but was renamed to Kilroy in September 1988.

Controversy and cancellation

The show was taken off air in 2004 after he was convicted of racist remarks which the presenter attributed towards Arab people in the Middle East pertaining the "Arabs have never contributed to civilisation". He has also stated other views that have gotten him into trouble, and are stated as being racial and bigoted, including but not limited to non-whites. He's riduculed Scots, the Irish, the Iraqis, Black people, Pakistanis, the French and Germans in general. His views have had him reported to the police by the Commission for Racial Equality.

As a result of this the BBC decided to cancel the show stating his views were a threat to the impartiality of the BBC, Kilroy claimed afterwards on the BBC's Question Time he was under a six month investigations when this happened. He's stated his show was cancelled based on the grounds he was anti-religious not racist. However panelist Shappi Khorsandi reiterated his racist views were more about the Arabs as he clearly defined in his article, and not about their religion in his 2009 appearance. Kilroy had previously claimed to have "apologised" in 2004 when a "partial" apology was made. It was rejected primarily because Kilroy himself twisted his words, as a result Iqbal Sacrani (secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain) said Kilroy did not denounce his racist views but skimmed over the apology and changed a few words in reconciliation.