British Airways (BA) has suspended its sponsorship of Louis Theroux’s podcast after he interviewed the frontman of the rap-punk duo Bob Vylan.
During the show, Pascal Robinson-Foster (“Bobby Vylan”) confirmed that he had chanted “death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury Festival. According to the airline, the episode violated its sponsorship guidelines on politically sensitive topics.
Interviewed by Theroux, ‘Vylan’ said he did not regret his outburst at the festival and would “say it again.” As a result, BA removed its advertisements from Theroux’s podcast series, emphasising that the content breached the company’s rules on politically sensitive or controversial material.
Following their Glastonbury performance, the duo had to cancel several concerts, including a show in Manchester, under criticism from MPs and Jewish community leaders. Public broadcaster the BBC, which transmitted the performance live, was also censured and was found to have breached its own editorial standards by airing “harmful and offensive” content, prompting calls for its director general Tim Davie to resign.
Leftist supporters of Theroux (son of the novelist Paul), see his ‘cancellation’—meaning the loss of the BA sponsorship deal—as a reprisal for his recent hostile documentary about Israeli settlers in the West Bank, In the process, they echo Vylan’s classic antisemitic allegation of Jewish control of the world’s media industries.
