David Starkey: If only Queen Elizabeth I had been black....

I'm sorry to see that 'historian' Dr David Starkey is in the Twitter stocks for his metaphorisation of black skin for criminality. His problem is that he has never to my knowledge written a history of a black homicidal maniac. If only Elizabeth I or her dad Henry VIII - his favourite book and TV topics - had been black he might now be metaphorising white skin for criminality: strange how chance, circumstance and schooling play a part in our avowed certainties and comforts.

Instead, like many other 'historians' before him, he has taken to identify with his lucrative subjects and even to adopt a prose style which could be mistaken for Tudorbethan pastiche. Some intellectual crossdressers go the whole hog and end up on pub stage as Madame Trollette to the joy of many. Others, merely write books and cultivate a persona that requires no wig or nail technician.

Dr Starkey has only to open his mouth and I see the Spanish Armada yonder.