Does criticising David Starkey equal ‘cancel culture’?
An open letter to the US magazine Harpers signed mainly by figures on the right or centre but with some on the left such as Noam Chomsky has criticised the cancel culture where people that make what are to many offensive comments on race, gender and belief are criticised.
The letter agrees that the main force behind attempts to silence opinions in the US is Donald Trump but argues that some on the left are also involved.
This raises a wide range of issues but it was interesting to see who in the UK was backing it. Perhaps predictably Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas seemed keen and Toby Young of the ‘Free Speech Union’ was definitely on board.
Tobes agreed that comments by David Starkey had gone a bit far and noted that he had apologised. He seemed however to think that one comment was at issue. Rather there was a 60 minute interview with Darren Grimes which contains a significant amount of contentious comment.
Starkey was stripped of various honours as a result and Young argues this was akin to George Orwell’s ‘two minute hate’.
What has really happened of course is that Starkey has been criticised and such were the views expressed that on this occasion he found few defenders.
I as socialist historian criticised and suggested he might usefully return to the archives to check whether his view that there is no significant black Tudor history is correct based on recent research.
Does this mean Starkey has been silenced? I don’t think so and I certainly have no ability or desire to do that. He can still no doubt find space in the columns of the Mail and the Telegraph if he wants. His apology for his remarks such as it was appeared on the front page of the BBC news website.
By contrast a press release from the London Socialist Historians on Starkey (see above) got no coverage at all. This is the reality of ‘cancel culture’ and the balance of power in society.
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