A welcome antidote to the ‘I-am-not-defending-Kilroy-but-let’s-face-it-he-is -right’ school comes from a predictable source in the Guardian today:
Let’s deal with the free speech canard first. Mr Kilroy-Silk is not being gagged; he is free to say what he likes. But the BBC is not under any obligation to use presenters who, in other guises, offend and insult a substantial section of its own licence-fee payers. Actually, the corporation is under quite an obligation not to. And since Kilroy-Silk raises the issue of his father himself, it seems unlikely that Churchill and the class of 1943 would have regarded the guaranteeing of jobs to controversialist talk-show hosts as being the very essence of liberty.
