COMEDIAN and broadcaster Jim Bowen today backed embattled TV host Robert Kilroy-Silk to return to our screens.

Jim, 66, who quit the BBC in 2002 in a row over using the phrase "nig-nog" on the radio, offered his support to Mr Kilroy-Silk after the presenter was taken off TV after a controversial newspaper article criticising Arabs.

And the former Billington teacher launched a scathing attack on the tide of political correctness in society and the BBC.

Kilroy-Silk, who hosts the daytime show Kilroy on BBC1, caused uproar among Muslims and race campaigners with comments in a column for the Sunday Express published on January 4.

The 61-year-old former MP accused "barbarous" Arab states of making little contribution to the world other than oil and exporting terrorism. He branded Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb amputators and women repressors".

Kilroy-Silk said the article was sent by mistake to the newspaper and was originally printed during the Iraq war, but went almost unnoticed then.

Jim, who was brought up in Accrington, said: "I can't see what taking away a successful morning programme from the British viewer will achieve. If you are in a position of headline broadcasting like Kilroy, despite the fact he has more than 18 years of professional and successful presenting, there are pitfalls. If it's one slip-up in 18 years, that isn't bad.

"Sadly in areas of race and minorities it's an unforgiving area. You have got to be aware when you are discussing it almost by accident you are walking on egg shells. We have got to be careful and I have got the T-shirt."

Jim, the Master of Ceremonies at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's recent Pride of East Lancashire awards, attended Accrington Grammar School before becoming a teacher at St Augustine's RC High School, Billington, and was deputy head at St Paul's Primary School, Caton. In 1971 he left teaching and worked his away around clubs in Blackpool and East Lancashire and made his big break on Granada TV's The Comedians. Bowen got his own show in 1981 when he began almost 15 years of hosting Bullseye, the popular darts quiz show which attracted 18.9 million viewers at its peak and made him famous for the expression: "Super, smashing, great."

In early 1999 he began his stint as host of the Happy Daft Farm on Radio Lancashire and said he had a huge number of messages of support after he left the BBC and he was aware of no complaints.

But Jim said that the forces of political correctness were not good for society. He said: "It's making society a very divided one. I am even frightened to use the word British - what an indictment that is.

"If we are British and over 50 it is probably better just keeping our heads down and getting on with it. I am not sure society is better for that.

"Perhaps the BBC needs to have a sit down and look at it rationally."

Jim, who has appeared on Kilroy's show in the past, praised the presenter. He said: "The man's been a politician, he's an ambitions man, he's a confident man with opinions. Isn't that nice to have opinions in Great Britain?"