I appreciated comments on the recent Robert Kilroy-Silk issue from a professor of Islamic studies at Edinburgh University, Yasir Suleiman. He says: “Generalising or stereotyping, as Silk appears to have done, is dangerous because it encourages ignorance. It feeds on it, taps into prejudice and most importantly undermines the pursuit of real knowledge for a constituency of readers who might be better served by being challenged instead of having their world-views apparently sealed by indiscriminate approval by a public figure.”

I loathe Kilroy-Silk. I hate him so much I would happily applaud his downfall. That he might be washed up now after this current debacle has a ring of retribution around it. He has spent so many years producing television that encourages the under-educated to articulate their badly thought-out views that he has come to think like them. I care not if saying this comes over snobbish. One characteristic of the under-educated is their careless use of language and their tendency to make lazy generalisations. KS has championed that for too long.

We’ve been trying over the last 30 years or so to change long-held attitudes of prejudice against minority groups. The adopting of appropriate language is only one measure of that attempt. People who still use tainted language are assumed either not to have given the issues any thought, or worse, are still invoking the prejudices. By using the appropriate language we show, at the very least, we are sensitive to the matter and are trying to change what is considered to be bad attitudes. To argue this is merely something of a PC pose is facile. It’s more important than that. It’s a genuine attempt to try and change things in the direction of moral improvement. KS and his ill-considered remarks are retrograde. He has become part of the problem. He well deserves sanction.

Sulieman: “Most rational people would accept the responsibility that attaches to freedom of speech. This should weigh heavily on public figures who themselves can reasonably be assumed to know the difference between an ethnic slur and a legitimate opinion, a blinkered prejudice and a firmly held belief, an attack against all and an attack against some, a racist comment and a rhetorical flourish. An acceptance of these kinds of norms is what makes a society civilised...... [and] despite some of its excesses political correctness is essentially about fairness and equality. Speech is a form of action and can be a loaded weapon”.