THE GUARDIAN: Controversial talkshow host blacklisted by former home secretary Jacqui Smith claims his views have never incited violence
US "shock jock" Michael Savage has appealed to prime minister Gordon Brown to remove his name from a blacklist of people barred from entering the UK.
The controversial radio talkshow host has already announced he will sue former home secretary Jacqui Smith for libel for placing his name on the list alongside former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald Black, a Hamas MP and the leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang.
Savage said his letter to the prime minister, which comes after Smith stepped down from the cabinet last week ahead of the reshuffle, provides Brown with an opportunity to stop his £100,000 lawsuit.
Savage, real name Michael Weiner, said that his inclusion on the blacklist was "arbitrary and based on soundbites taken out of context", adding that he had already approached the new home secretary, Alan Johnson, asking for his case to be urgently reconsidered.
In his letter, he described Smith's claims that he fostered hatred and provoked crime as "entirely untrue and extremely damaging".
"I am advised that these allegations are serious and that should I press my claim, I am likely to recover a very substantial award in damages," he added.
Describing himself as an admirer of "the land of Magna Carta, the mother of parliaments and the great Winston Churchill", Savage said he was "shocked and astonished" to chosen for exclusion. >>> Jason Deans and agencies | Wednesday, June 10, 2009
