When I criticised Starkey for playing xenophobia for laughs, and asked why, as an advocate of Britishness, he lives for part of the year in the United States, the dinosaur showed its claws.
Possibly, child, because it is a complete and utter irrelevance. I have to spend quite a bit of my time in London - it's not because I'm an advocate of the values either of Eastenders or of the Westminster village. Or even the "fuck them all, let's just grab the cash" attitude of much of the City. You can be an advocate of, well, in Starkey's case more Englishness than Britishness - he's not very keen on Scotland - despite having to, or even liking, working, holiday or even living elsewhere.
But anyway, what did he say to offend her this much? (Ed notes: this is as reported by one of the vermin in this particular rat-fight - don't place to much emphasis on its accuracy. This is a Laurie Penny report, remember!)
"real British values" are not, as Starkey put it, "entrenched in the foothills of the Punjab".
They may not have been entrenched there - and British values are the antithesis of some of the tribal culture of the north-western end of the sub-continent) but, to a very great degree they were created there. The Raj, and its denizens' attempts to recreate a wholly-mythical Golden Age England in their exile is responsible for a lot of of the quainter things that certainly tourist boards like to promote as "Britishness".
If we could just persuade these two to have a very public fight to the death (of their reputations), it is a no lose situation for reality. Especially if we can actually manage to have both of them so wounded that they never dare appear in public again. Unfortunately, the self-belief (idiotic in Laurie's case) seems so invincible in the pair of them that no such luck will attend us.
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