Listen to any singer from the Gypsy tradition and tell me they're dispassionate.

George, as always you are ready to give others the benefit of the doubt - a quality which speaks well of the sort of person you are. But I remember the other discussions about Walkaboutsverse's "world view", which encompassed his thoughts about the "purity" of music and how this related to cultural purity.

We all regret, I'm sure, the loss of certain aspects of cultural heritage, and particularly regret the fact that things we regard as vital to our culture(s) and heritage have become little more than minority pastimes. But some people harken back to a time which never existed, when Britain was a monoculture and "Englishness" could be defined as a single entity. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of British history knows how false (and possibly Victorian?) a construct this is - I was just listening to a programme on Radio 4 yesterday on how Dutch Britain was at the end of the 17th century - one of the things that made William and Mary's usurption of the throne that much easier.

People who have some notion of "Britishness" or "Englishness" as a stand-alone entity, and who regret its dilution - or even pollution - by foreigners, are not only deluded, they can be rather dangerous. When those people adopt a national music as an emblem for regaining that cultural purity...well, we've seen it before, haven't we? And I think that, given the history of English "nationalism" in the 80s, any attempt to harness the horse of traditional culture to the cart of cultural purity and anti-immigration needs to be weeded out. English folk has taken enough of a beating through general neglect. The last thing we need is for it to be despised as part of a right-wing political agenda.

And let's be clear: while he cited the "Americanness" of Seth's delivery, David Franks would object to Seth Lakeman's music whether he thought the influences were too African, or too Asian, or too Eastern European. I've seen the discussions on the BBC board where he argues how certain instruments shouldn't be used in English music because they're culturally inappropriate, for heaven's sake! Where on earth would that argument eventually lead?