Is Kilroy "Right-Wing"?

He has never claimed to be. Campaigning for European Parliament, he presented himself as a lot more Labour than New Labour was, and he had a point.

I have been as dismissive of him as anyone else, both here and elsewhere. I think that a man who would have been a Minister in a Labour Government if he had he not been hounded out by the Trots, and who then had a successful career in the media, was wrong to get mixed-up with UKIP in the first place. But I also think that the BBC was wrong to sack for an article which, after all, could now appear on something like Harry's Place without raising an eyebrow. Kilroy was true public service broadcasting, in that it prevented commercial stations from filling the void with the likes of The Jeremy Kyle Show.

As his political life probably draws to a close, he is well worth a reappraisal. Forget the snobbish disdain for his permatan, his Birmingham accent, his degree from the LSE, his former academic career at redbrick Liverpool, and the sort of people who appeared on (and were considered to watch) his television programme. He hasn't been right about everything. But he has been right about an awful lot.