RACE ROW STARKEY SACKED BY
HISTORIAN David Starkey has been stripped of his honorary Sunday Sport fellowship after his “so many damn blacks” comments.
Starkey made the remarks during an online interview with Conservative commentator and Brexit campaigner Darren Grimes for the YouTube channel Reasoned UK.
During the interview, Starkey said: “Slavery was not genocide otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there?”
The 75- year- old’s remarks caused outrage and a meeting of Sunday Sport’s Ethics and Social Responsibility Committee decided that his fellowship would have to be revoked.
The fellowship, which entitled Starkey to free admission to the Sunday Sport Christmas Ball For The Orphans and the annual Garden Party, was conferred on the brainbox last July.
Although the constitutional historian never formally accepted
the honour, this newspaper has nevertheless decided to sever ties with Starkey.
A spokesman for Sunday Sport said: “This newspaper is 100% committed to freedom of speech but Dr David Starkey’s comments about ‘ so many damn blacks’ were beyond the pale.
“This is 2020 and you cannot say ‘ so many damn blacks’. It sounds dead racialist and that.”
Sunday Sport is not the only institution to distance itself from Starkey.
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, said it contacted the academic and broadcaster following his controversial comments and accepted the resignation of his honorary fellowship “with immediate effect”, stressing it will “not tolerate racism”.
He has also been stripped of his visiting professor post at Canterbury Christ Church University.
And publisher, Harper Collins, tweeted: “The views expressed by David Starkey in his recent interview are abhorrent and we unreservedly condemn them.
“Our last book with the author was in 2010, and we will not be publishing further books with him.
“We are reviewing his existing backlist in light of his comments and views.”
Starkey has also resigned from the board of the Mary Rose Trust, which oversees the Tudor Mary Rose ship.