Kilroy's tortuous path from Labour MP to fallen daytime TV host

"See you in the morning!" That was Robert Kilroy-Silk's catch phrase, as he signed off his daily talk show for the BBC.

But Kilroy-Silk won't be "seeing" his audience for many a morning after being taken off the air by the BBC for writing a newspaper column in which he described Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors".

The BBC's amputation of Kilroy looks like the end for one of Britain's best-known programmes, a show that made its presenter a high-profile television personality.

It is also another twist in the already tortuous career path of a complex man who has achieved fame by adopting the role of a counsellor to encourage others to admit their failings in public.

Silver-haired and with a famous all-year-round tan, Kilroy-Silk flitted around his studio audience, brandishing a microphone and urging his guests to confess their misdemeanours and misfortunes.

Commentators have frequently remarked on the contrast between the show's glamorous host and the often down-at-heel guests who have gathered to discuss social issues such as child abuse, infidelity, drug abuse and racism.

But Kilroy-Silk, 61, himself is never afraid to point out his own disadvantages. He grew up in humble circumstances in the West Midlands, his father having been killed in action in the Second World War.

The presenter was educated at Saltley Grammar School in Birmingham and became a student at the London School of Economics, graduating in 1964, when the LSE was known for student radicalism.

Two years later he became a lecturer in the Department of Political Theory and Institutions at Liverpool University, while contributing to books such as Socialism since Marx and forging a political career in the Labour party.

After unsuccessfully contesting Ormskirk in 1970, he won the seat four years later and held it for nine years before representing Knowsley North for a further three.

But having been concerned at the growing influence of the Militant tendency in Labour, he resigned from politics to pursue a media career in 1986. Within a year he had his own show and was soon dubbed "the housewife's favourite".

Kilroy-Silk, who has been married for 40 years and has a son and a daughter, set up The Kilroy Television Company in 1989.

His fame led to him being offered columns in The Times and the Daily Express. But as he became successful, the presenter appeared to grow more intolerant.

He was forced to apologise to the Irish people and the EC Commissioner Ray MacSharry over comments in an article for the Daily Express in 1992. The former MP described Mr MacSharry as a "redundant second-rate politician from a country peopled by peasants, priests and pixies".

Kilroy-Silk made a formal apology and accepted that his comments were "offensive and unjustified". But his newspaper columns have become no less reactionary.

"Can everyone stop blaming the British and Americans for the fact that there are a load of thieving Arabs in Iraq?" he asked readers of the Sunday Express in May last year. "The orgy of thieving in Iraq has more to do with the character of the people than the absence of restraining troops."

The presenter once said that he was "impervious to criticism from anyone outside my family", which may help him to deal with recent events but is unlikely to aid him in his "discussions" with BBC bosses.

Whether Kilroy-Silk still has a future on television is in doubt, although a rival broadcaster may offer him a seat in the audience for a show on fallen celebrities.