David Starkey’s Newsnight race remarks: hundreds complain to BBC

Ed Miliband joins those criticising historian’s claim that ‘whites have become black’, saying it is ‘disgusting and outrageous’ The BBC has received more than 700 complaints about the controversial claim by historian and broadcaster David Starkey that “whites have become black” in a discussion about last week’s riots on Newsnight. Of those contacting the BBC, 696 were protesting about Starkey’s comments, with 21 supporting him, complaining the debate was chaired poorly and he was treated “unfairly” as a result. Media regulator Ofcom has also had complaints while an online campaign by an organisation called gopetition.co.uk demanding the BBC should issue a public apology for “unacceptable comments” had attracted more than 3,600 signatures by mid-afternoon on Monday. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, on Monday described Starkey’s comments on race as “disgusting and outrageous”. Speaking at Haverstock School, his former school in Chalk Farm in London, Miliband said it was “absolutely outrageous that someone in the 21st century could be making that sort of comment”. He added: “There should be condemnation from every politician, from every political party of those sorts of comments.” Starkey’s remarks, made during a debate about the riots on Friday’s Newsnight, provoked an immediate storm of controversy, with BBC business editor Robert Peston tweeting: “David Starkey’s nasty ignorance is best ignored, not worthy of comment or debate – though I fear there will be a media feeding frenzy”. CNN presenter Piers Morgan described him on Twitter as “a racist idiot” and said he had committed career suicide. The majority of complainants said the BBC was wrong to allow him to express such a view and should not have had him on as a guest, or at the very least should have challenged him more robustly. Starkey was in the middle of a heated discussion with Owen Jones, author of Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Classes, when he made his remarks during a debate hosted by Emily Maitlis. “What has happened is that the substantial section of the chavs that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion,” he said. “Black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together. This language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has intruded in England. This is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.” Starkey then referred to Labour MP for Tottenham David Lammy, who he described as “an archetypal successful black man”. He said he sounded white. “If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was white.” Lammy has since denounced Starkey’s remarks as “dangerous and divisive”. The BBC said while it acknowledged that some people will have found Starkey’s comments “offensive”, “he was robustly challenged by presenter Emily Maitlis and the other contributors who took issue with his comments”. Jones highlighted the potential offence Starkey may have given and Maitlis provided further context by pointing out that David Cameron had already said the riots were not a race issue, the corporation added. •

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