Every so often the 'Dave Spart' tendency rises to the surface in the folk world, i.e. the trend started in the 1970s by Trotskyist, polytechnic academics (like Dave Harker-Spart)to condemn an interest in folk song as bourgeois or nationalist and folk song collectors as appropriators of the 'workers'' music and culture. The sub-text in any such debate seems to be that the only politically correct musical taste to have is that of contemporary 'workin' klarss yoof'. To which my instinctive response is BOLLOCKS!

This standpoint seems to ignore the fact that if it wasn't for the 'middle klarss' collectors we would know very little about the 'workers'' music and the fact that revivalists are keeping the songs and music alive.

I should also point out that the 'Spartists' are rarely 'workin' klarss' themselves - but rather grammar school boys and girls from places like Kingston-on-Thames or Wilmslow.