PROFESSOR DAVID STARKEY

Professor David Starkey is,  far and away,  our favourite historian here at Laimsiadair Hill.  We think he is a breath of fresh air in a very stuffy world.  That is not to say,  however,  that we agree with his political views or anything like that but,  unlike the Scottish National Party,  we are great believers in free speech.

Fast forward to the summer of this year and  we find Professor Starkey being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for comments he made to a journalist,  Darren Grimes,  about the long-distant slave trade.  The Professor  offered the view that 'slavery was not genocide,  otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain,  would there?'.

The resulting furore was instantaneous.  One of his publishers,  HarperCollins,  denounced his views as 'abhorrent',   another publisher,  Hodder and Stoughton,  declared it would never publish him again and the universities denounced him also.  Indeed,  one university went as far as to cancel his visiting professorship. To crown it all,  the Metropolitan Police said they were investigating not only Professor Starkey but Mr Grimes also.

If we analyse word by word what the Professor said,  the only conclusion we can arrive at is that the furore must be about the inclusion of the solitary word 'damn' in the sentence.  In this context,  the word damn can be only an adjective and,  on looking up our favourite dictionary, The Chambers Dictionary,  we see that the word in this context is an intensifier,  to quote the dictionary,  of the word 'blacks'.  How on earth can that be even remotely criminal?

Professor Starkey was,  himself,  the first to apologise for an inappropriate use of words and he was correct to do so.    Now,  the Metropolitan Police are retracting their position and reviewing the matter to see whether their continued investigation is 'proportionate' in the circumstances, ie,  in layman's language,  whether their investigation is tripe.  

As for HarperCollins,  Hodder and Stoughton and the universities concerned in immediately denouncing Professor Starkey,  are they not really the true culprits in this little debacle of denying freedom of speech?  We certainly think so.  They should hang their collective heads in shame and offer Professor Starkey the apology he richly deserves.  They are too arrogant,  however,  to do any such thing.