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Michael Savage makes personal appeal to Brown
The US ‘shock jock’ will continue libel case against Jacqui Smith - unless PM removes name from Home Office blacklist
Jacqui Smith may be gone from the Government, but one of the hot potatoes she had to deal with in her final days as Home Secretary has not gone with her – namely the blacklisting of the controversial American 'shock jock' Michael Savage.
Savage threatened to sue Smith for £100,000 libel damages when she sanctioned the inclusion of his name on a list of 16 'undesirables' banned from entering Britain. Savage took great exception to being named on a list that included "a Hamas murderer who killed two young Israeli parents and then assaulted and killed their four-year-old daughter".
He has now written personally to both Gordon Brown and the new Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanding that his name be removed. If they don't agree, he will continue his libel case against Smith.
Savage – real name Michael Weiner - has already instructed the City of London law firm Olswang and has urged his eight million American listeners to boycott British goods. He describes the Home Office’s claims that he fostered hatred and provoked crime as "entirely untrue and extremely damaging" and says his inclusion on the blacklist was "arbitrary and based on soundbites taken out of context".
Even if the British Government does take his name off the list, it seems he still expects it to pay his lawyer's bill. Speaking from San Francisco to Sky News, he said: "Gordon Brown has the option now of taking my name off the list and saying 'A mistake has been made, you're welcome to come to our country' and paying me legal fees."
He added: "I think Gordon Brown is the bigger man than Jacqui Smith and I suspect that he may understand that a terrible error has been made here." ·
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Why was Savage singled out for blacklisting? If Smith had included his fellow hate mongering US shock jocks - Coulter, O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Hannity it would have made more sense.
If anyone wishes to know why then they could read Michael Rowe's article in Huffington Post of June 11th - "Death at the Holocaust Museum and the Degradation of the American Dialogue". A brilliant piece of writing and right on the button.
"I think Gordon Brown is the bigger man than Jacqui Smith"... noooo Mr Wiener, you don't understand Britiah politics at all.