Katie Hopkins: Nine perfect responses to her offensive comments

After students at Brunel University took a stand against the controversial columnist this week, we re-visit other reactions over the last year

Katie Hopkins (Getty Images )

Students at Brunel University took a stand against Katie Hopkins on Monday by filling a lecture theatre for a debate she was in and then leaving in a mass walk-out the moment she started speaking.

Those who participated join a long list of people who took action after being offended and/or appalled by another one of her comments. Here are eight memorable responses:

1. Comedian and The Last Leg presenter Adam Hills launched a tirade against Hopkins, who he described as a “professional s**t stirrer”, over her response to the Ebola crisis. Hills went through Hopkins' most controversial tweets with a few comments of his own during nominations for “d**k of the year”.

“There’s no point calling you a d**k because you know you’re being a d**k,” he said. “You trade on it. And it’s for this reason that I don’t want people to vote for you as d**k of the year.”

2. A Change.org petition proposed Hopkins be sent over to Syria to free up space her “massive head takes up” for refugees.

The petition launched by Tickhill resident Ben Fletcher called for Hopkins to be swapped for 50,000 refugees after she reacted to the death of hundreds when their boat capsized by advocating the use of gunships to deter people from attempting to reach Europe’s shores.

The petition argued: “The facts are they deserve a lot more than she does, and it would be a win-win all round, we help people and save their lives and at the same time get rid of the UK's contribution to the hall of national embarrassments.”

It was signed by more than 50,000 people.

3. Lord Alan Sugar, Hopkins’ former boss on The Apprentice, was less than impressed with how his recruit turned out after finding fame on the show, comparing her to “Piers Morgan on steroids” during an interview with The Times.

"Her niche is to be obnoxious and controversial and it's a shtick,” he said. “She's just trying to make herself famous. She's chosen a niche in the market for herself. She's become Piers Morgan on steroids, if there could be such a thing."

Lord Sugar (Getty)

4. Hopkins' most infamous column in The Sun led to Peter Herbert, the Chair of the Society of Black Lawyers, reporting Hopkins and the newspaper to police for comparing refugees to cockroaches.

Hopkins was questioned by police over allegations of inciting racial hatred in the piece, which Herbert’s complaint said contained “some of the most offensive, xenophobic and racist comments I have read in a British newspaper for some years”.

The force confirmed it would not be charging Hopkins with any offence in November.

5. Hopkins was accused of “stooping to a new low” by the National Autistic Society over comments she made about a nine-year-old girl with autism on Twitter. In a series of tweets, Hopkins, who later revealed she has a daughter on the spectrum, compared the child to a farm animal and said she was “too busy being a complete t**t”.

The NAS issued an eloquent statement in response to her comments and invited her to their headquarters to meet some of its members.

6. Charlotte Church is one of a number of people to have appeared in unfavourable tweets on Hopkins’ Twitter feed over the singer’s anti-austerity campaigning. The pair traded blows on Twitter until Church offered to fight her in a charity boxing match. Hopkins replied by calling her “a fat, Welsh, Russell Brand” and claiming she could “knock that gurn off your face”.

Church kept her response short but sweet.

7. Lucy Hawkings, the daughter of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawkings, was so incensed by Hopkins' comments on disability that she urged her to “please stop” in an open letter published by The Guardian.

Her father Hawkings has motor neurone disease. Lucy described the prejudice they faced as a family growing up after Hopkins described the former Labour leader Ed Miliband as appearing as if he was "on the spectrum".

"I hoped that now, no disabled person would encounter this kind of behaviour – and that they would be treated with respect and dignity," she wrote.

"I have an autistic son. He’s very sweet, polite, hard-working, kind and generally lovely. But yes, he does stare at people from time to time.

"When we are on the tube, occasionally I have to say to a member of the public that my son is autistic and that I’m sorry he is staring. The reaction is always kind and compassionate."

8. Hopkins showed a rarely seen softer side when a mother of a child with ADHD rang in to the LBC radio station and challenged her live on air.

“I’ve got three children, one with ADHD, does that make me a bad parent?” she asked. “All her behaviour, even though she’s not a bad person or a naughty person, is down to ADHD.

“To judge and say that they are naughty children is just unfair.

“Some days are very, very challenging, but they are just normal children and want to be part of normal life, and to say that is just unfair.

“It takes a lot of courage to come on here and tell me I’m wrong,” Hopkins conceded. “It’s easy for me to point the finger.

9. Lorraine Kelly, one of the most recognisable faces of daytime TV, responded to the barrage of controversial comments made by Hopkins by announcing that she wouldn’t be receiving an invite on to her show anytime soon.

“People are usually there to promote something, so they're always OK,” she reportedly told the Daily Star.

“But with Katie Hopkins, now there is someone I'm not sure I could be nice to. I think that's I'd draw the line there.

“When people come on my show I treat them with the respect I would expect in return. But there are always exceptions. I don't want to ask her on.”