Coleen Nolan's Islamic State comment cleared by Ofcom

The Loose Women star caused a storm when she appeared to compare the fight for gay rights with Islamic State as the hosts of the ITV show were discussing the case in which the Christian owners of a bakery – Daniel and Amy McArthur – were found to have discriminated against a gay man when they refused to make a cake carrying a slogan that promoted same-sex marriage.

Coleen provoked controversy when she said: “If you went in somewhere and they said two days later, ‘we don’t want to make your cake because of our beliefs’ you’d just never go back to that shop and tell all your friends to boycott it.

“What if somebody walked in and said ‘I want a cake with Islamic State on it and how I support it and how I support them killing our people’ and because it’s a business would they have to make that?”

Some viewers called for her to be sacked.

But a spokesman for Ofcom, which received 140 complaints, said: “We assessed a number of complaints that it was offensive for a panellist to compare same sex marriage to the terrorist group Isis (Islamic State), but won’t be taking the matter forward for investigation.

“In our view, these unscripted comments during a live programme were unlikely to exceed the expectations of the audience and were justified by the context.”