Oh dear. Bearman vs Harker seems to have been a bit like 1066 and all that's Roundheads and Cavaliers - Right but Repulsive vs Wrong but Wromantic. And it really didn't help that Bearman seemed to want to turn it into Bearman vs the World.

Still, if you wipe off the froth and overstatement, the actual points Bearman was making seem pretty solid, viz. (a) there's no evidence of C# having fascist leanings, and (ii) Rolf Gardiner wasn't involved in setting up the Morris Ring, whereas people with left-wing views were. And these points do matter, because the idea that there was something dodgy and blood-and-soil-ish about the first folksong revival has become received wisdom. We're perpetually disavowing something that probably never existed.