Well I can't see why an English writer shouldn't use jazz, Indian music, American , or Icelandic music, or Russian music, and instrumentation - if he thinks it helps talk about what its like living in England today, or even talks about living in England 300 years ago - and as far as Im concerned it will be English folk music.

Do you think guitars , pianos, synthesizers, concertinas, bagpipes - all sprang from English soil, in some mystical way? No, at some point an artist got in there made a synthesis of what was available and created.

You should be tolerant, and (though its asking too much of some buggers) intelligent of creativity.

And yes I can understand why a pompous dickhead like Starkey might have found one or two emotional soulmates. he makes Blair sound human. That guy really talks as though he shits marble - his metaphor of Thomas Cromwell being a bit like someone who had studied modern American business methods struck me as breathtaking in its sheer awfulness.