There was a spate of “I agree” responses from Daily Mail readers after one of Britain’s most eminent and Right-wing historians suggested that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wasn’t pukka British and had no business doing a Bible reading at King Charles’s coronation.
Interviewed for his views on the ceremony on the TV channel, GB News, David Starkey, an expert on Tudor Britain, said Rishi, a Hindu, was “a man of immense talent and extraordinary skill, but really not fully grounded in our culture”.
He added: “I know that’s a difficult and controversial thing to say, but I think it’s true, and again this coronation is going to highlight far too much our differences.”
Starkey, 78, insisted his comments were not racist: “I’ve never made a racist utterance in my life.”
He slammed Charles’s decision to include multi-faith elements in the coronation, describing Saturday’s planned service as “‘the most extraordinary potpourri” because the King, in his opinion, took a “pick’n’mix” approach to religions.
He condemned the decision of peers not to wear robes and coronets: “It was a magnificent piece of theatre. And that’s gone. We will now have this extraordinary miscellaneous collection of people, the sort traditionally referred to as the ‘salt of the earth’, in a sloppy dress. I think that the disappearance of our old governing class and its replacement by a new one is actually a matter of regret.”
Starkey was dropped by his publishers and made to resign from his honorary Fellowship at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s alma mater) in 2020 after the historian claimed slavery was not genocide because there were “so many damn blacks” in Africa and Britain.
One Mail reader said, “Starkey has a habit of saying what I’m thinking,” while another added, “A correct observation and not at all racist. When his (Rishi’s) family has been here 500 years, they will be better grounded.”
Former cabinet minister Shailesh Vara, who was born in Uganda to Gujarati parents and came to Britain as a toddler, hit back: “This is an appalling comment and in no way reflects modern Britain and the people who live and work here — irrespective of their family background. Rishi Sunak is as enthusiastic and committed to the coronation celebrations as the most ardent of patriotic citizens.”
Ahead of the coronation I ventured out on Thursday night, and found Regent Street in the heart of London’s West End festooned in Union Jack bunting. I was tempted but (have so far) resisted buying a Charles and Camilla mug.
Luxury ceramics maker Halcyon Days said it expected sales of more than £1 million of its collections created to mark the occasion and had increased its workforce by 20per cent since January to create an additional 150,000 products.
EBay has also reported a roaring trade in coronation-themed mementoes as searches for “coronation teddy” jumped by more than 980 per cent week on week, “God save the King cushions” by 400 per cent and “King Charles III coronation mug” by more than 260 per cent.
