Katie Hopkins, LBC, review: Yes, Katie spewed frothing bile, but radio bosses should take the blame

What did LBC think would be gained by offering a platform to the swivel-eyed troll? asks Fiona Sturges

(Rex Features)

When some bright spark at LBC came up the idea of asking swivel-eyed über-troll Katie Hopkins to sit in for the Sunday morning presenter Beverley Turner, they probably felt pretty pleased themselves. When her show was announced early last week, provoking ripples of consternation across social media, they very likely sat back and, long before Hopkins had entered the building, considered it a job well done.

But that was before their latest recruit wrote a newspaper column in which she suggested setting gunboats on migrants risking life and limb to cross the Mediterranean, and compared them to cockroaches. This unedifying rant was published on Sunday a matter of hours before hundreds of refugees were reported to have died during an attempted sea crossing.

It would seem pointless to dwell too long on Hopkins' craven attention seeking that appears to have now moved from contrived to clinical. She loves controversy like a dog loves rolling in crap. It doesn't make me angry, even if stinks to high heaven.

More infuriating are the commissioning editors and bookers who enable her.

What did LBC think would be gained by offering a platform to her frothing bile? A quick burst of publicity? A swift surge in listening figures? Putting aside the question of decency, the problem with such instant gratification is that it comes at the expense of an audience's trust.

Trust, that is, to make sound decisions based on quality rather than clickbait.

So how did Hopkins fare on air? It would be nice to report that, having been introduced by presenter Stig Abell as "Satan's mother-in-law herself", she peeled off her mask of Beelzebub and revealed that the last few years had been in fact a massive prank intended as a commentary on the politics of outrage.

But alas, the snarling facade remained, even if she had backtracked slightly on her stance on those Mediterranean migrants whom she had, just hours before, deemed to be vermin (she claimed she never intended the gunships to fire on them, just to turn them around and tug them back to north Africa. So that's nice).

Still, Hopkins was clearly up for a scrap. She said she wanted to burn all the boats in a huge bonfire in Libya. She was also a huge admirer of the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose tough stance on refugees has reduced the numbers of migrants coming to his country, and declared Australia to be her "spiritual home" – at which point scores of listeners no doubt began drawing up the paperwork for her visa.

Hopkins was, for the most part, polite to her callers, showering all those who fell into line with her views with compliments. Those who dared to disagree with her got shorter shrift – one, called Ronke, was cut off with a terse "you're boring me now". But even Hopkins knows when to tone down the panto villain act, and when a man named Hussein calmly informed her:

"I came [to the UK] because my life was in danger. ... I came here to be safe. Everything that is wrong in this country is not the fault of migrants", she was almost lost for words.

It's hard to see where Hopkins can go from here, bar going out on to the streets and beating up homeless people. And LBC? One hopes that it will recognise this latest turn of events as the PR disaster that it is and will never let Hopkins near their studios again.

Twitter.com/FionaSturges