Guest, you bring up a good point. Here we have a word that was "hijacked" by racists in the 50's and 60's; the same word in the context of the Padstow custom refers not to colour of skin but to the "dark times", or so we are told (it makes sense, as the custom and its name predate the 50's by a few centuries). What to do? Throw out the custom because some bigots hijacked its name?

Similarly, in recent years the English flag has been hijacked by other bigots - the fascists and BNP sympathisers - to the point that ordinary English folks are wary of displaying their flag in case their feelings are misunderstood. Again - what to do?

My personal stance on both these cases is to defend the tradition and attack the offensive divergence from it. In other words, not to flush the baby along with the bathwater down the drain.

Any other reaction finds me asking "according to which guidelines?".

Take Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice. No two ways about it, Shylock is not shown in the best of lights in that otherwise wonderful play; this reflects the ethos of the times, and - perhaps - some bigotry too. But we have not banned the play as racist.

So, why ban the Padstow custom (in its original state, cleaned up from any unsavoury latter-day additions such as songs about "niggers"), yet keep the play? What guideline do we use for this?

Or - do we ban both regardless? I contend that this is the road to Big Brother; because if we do not draw some sensible line somewhere, there is nothing to stop us from

- banning Christianity because is was Christians that perpetrated the crimes in the recent Iraq war
- banning the singing of national anthems because the Extreme Right uses them
- banning the story of Red Riding Hood because it is inhumane towards animals (what with the disembowelling etc)
- banning nativity plays at school because they might offend members of other religions (ah, sorry, this has already happened - in Autralia, that bastion of Political Correctness)

I am not making light of the issue, using the examples above. Just giving a taste of what can happen when anyone has unlimited power - even the Political Correctness Brigade. We need some criterion/guideline, otherwise "that way lies madness".