Robert Kilroy-Silk

Robert Michael Kilroy-Silk (born 19 May 1942), British politician and Member of the European Parliament, and former chat show host.

Sourced

• I didn't really hit him. If I had, he'd have stayed down.
  • On being accused of hitting Jeremy Corbyn MP in 1985
  • Independent, 6 June 2004

• They [Muslims] are backward and evil and if it is racist to say so... then racist I must be — and happy and proud, to be so.
  • Daily Express, 25 February 1991

• Moslems everywhere behave with equal savagery. They behead criminals, stone to death female — only female — adulteresses, throw acid in the faces of women who refuse to wear the chador, mutilate the genitals of young girls and ritually abuse animals.
  • Daily Express, 15 January 1995

• A country peopled by peasants, priests and pixies.
  • Describing Ireland, Daily Express, 9 November 2002

• The indigenous population is not responsible.... It is the foreigners that we have to focus on.
  • Discussing a rise in HIV infections in Britain, Sunday Express, 1 December 2002

• The orgy of thieving in Iraq has more to do with the character of the people than the absence of restraining troops. And to think that good, decent, law-abiding young British and American men and women laid down their lives to liberate this thieving mob.
  • Sunday Express, 4 May 2003

• 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 [Arabs] 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?
  • Sunday Express, 4 January 2004 (full text of the column)
  • This column resulted in Kilroy-Silk's dismissal from the BBC.

• Their fate will be in each other's hands as they decide whether to share or to shaft.
  • Shafted, 2001
  • Frequently shown as a running joke on Have I Got News For You

Attributed

• He won't let go of my hand. Are you gay?
  • While shaking hands with a voter in the 2005 general election campaign.

• If you make me look bad on camera, I'll wrap that thing around your neck.
  • The "thing" in question was the walking stick of an elderly gentleman who had informed Kilroy-Silk he would not be voting for him in the forthcoming election (2005).

• Why not leave today?
  • Said by Kilroy-Silk to a legal immigrant on the streets of Bradford. The man had said that he was going back to his country of origin in two weeks- that was Kilroy-Silk's response.