BROADCASTER and satirist Kenneth Robinson, best known for his acerbic

contributions to Radio 4's Start the Week programme, has died. He was

68.

His family said that he died last night in Kingston Hospital, London,

after a short illness.

During a turbulent career with BBC he gained a reputation for his

stinging wit and hard-hitting views -- which frequently spilled over

into rudeness.

In his 15 years with Start the Week he had a number of blazing public

rows.

There were angry on-air exchanges with Esther Rantzen. Angela Rippon

was reduced to tears when he ridiculed a book she had written.

He was suspended from the programme for a time in 1984 after a barbed

aside about a dating agency for the disabled brought a flood of

listeners' complaints.

Two years later he was finally axed altogether. He interrupted

presenter Richard Baker's announcement of his departure saying: ''I'm

not going. I'm not going. They have given me three days' notice after so

many years. It's a bloody disgrace.''

A friend once said: ''He is a religious man with a genuine sense of

outrage at the state of the modern world who uses his savage humour to

expose what he sees as cant, muddled thinking or hypocrisy.''

Mr Robinson leaves a widow, Mary, and two children.