Here is a decision that doesn’t need a review, Prime Minister: keep Kanye out of the UK, writes Nick Ferrari.

In a world where doing the right thing often comes second to profit and profile, those in positions of leadership have a clear choice, make the right decision, or the wrong one, and live with the consequences.

There can be few clearer examples than the booking of Kanye West at Wireless Festival.

Wireless is owned and operated by Festival Republic, part of the global entertainment giant Live Nation. At the centre of that decision is Melvin Benn, the long-time figure behind Wireless, Reading and Leeds.

Benn is in a position of real cultural influence. The decisions he makes do not just affect ticket sales, they shape the tone of what is considered acceptable.

Booking Kanye West is not just controversial. It is irresponsible.

He had a choice, take the publicity and profit, or consider the wider impact, particularly the message it sends to young audiences and to the Jewish community. A clear opportunity to draw a line and say antisemitism, in any form, is unacceptable, and that no apology erases it.

He chose the former.

This is corporate greed at its clearest. Profit over principle, visibility over responsibility.

The responsibility does not stop with Benn. The boards of Festival Republic and Live Nation, and its controlling shareholder Liberty Media, all sit above this decision. Leadership means accountability, especially when the consequences are obvious.

When you run an organisation with cultural weight, controversy comes with the territory. But increasingly, the expectation is simple, make decisions that reflect the values you claim to hold, not just the balance sheet you want to protect.

Benn’s defence only underlines the problem.

Pointing to a “legal right” to perform misses the point entirely. Legality is not the same as judgement. Suggesting that airplay somehow justifies the booking is equally hollow.

None of LBC's sister stations in this commercial radio group - the largest in the UK - have played Kanye West's music for at least the last 12 months, which is as far back as records go.

Others will have to account for their own decisions.

Excusing behaviour like this is not neutrality, it is a choice. And it is a choice driven by money.

Benn appears to have misjudged the scale of the reaction. What may have been expected to generate a brief controversy has instead triggered a significant backlash, including the loss of sponsors and growing pressure over whether Kanye West should be permitted entry to the UK at all.

That question now sits with the Home Secretary.

The UK has, at times, acted as a line of defence against precisely this kind of moment, a place where values are enforced, not traded away. If that principle means anything, it should apply here.

Antisemitism cannot be tolerated, and those who promote or excuse it should not be given a platform.

Melvin Benn should resign in disgrace. If you're thick-skinned enough to book a man who describes himself as a Nazi for your festival, then you're probably so thick-skinned that you wouldn't consider resigning; in which case he should be removed by Festival Republic's Board - Dennis Desmond, Selina Emeny and Lynn Lavelle. Over to you.

If they won't act, then the board of the parent company, Live Nation, which owns Festival Republic 100% since 2012, should act.

So, then it's over to Randall Mays, Michael Rapino, Jimmy Iovine, Maverick Carter, Ping Fu, Richard Grenell, Jeffrey Hinson, Chad Hollingsworth, James Kahan, Rich Paul, Carl Vogel, and Latrice Watkins.

No more excuses. This one crosses the line.

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Listen to Nick Ferrari at Breakfast on LBC - weekdays from 7am on the LBC app.

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