This year’s Reith lecturer is the historian and activist Rutger Bregman. Given the way things work in the BBC, it comes as no surprise that a Dutchman, however charismatic, has been chosen to lecture us on modern British history. There are dozens of extremely well-qualified historians in British universities who could have spoken rather more insightfully.

Given the way things work in the BBC, it comes as no surprise that a Dutchman has been chosen to lecture us on modern British history

It isn’t surprising either that in Bregman’s first lecture on ‘Moral Revolution’ he should have declared himself to be a social democrat. The BBC simply cannot understand real diversity of the mind and they ‘turn left’ reflexively. At the moment of Bregman’s declaration, half the audience at home will have winced; some will have switched off – not because they are of a different party, but because no one talking about history should need, or want, to declare their political affiliations. The facts, presented properly and fairly, speak for themselves.

Bregman deserves credit for his second lecture, at least, on the history of British anti-slavery. It is a corrective to all the many BBC programmes and broadcasts that berate Britons, then and now, for having traded or owned slaves at a time when slavery was ubiquitous across the globe. The really important historical question, as Bregman understands, is not why the British owned slaves but why they came to see that slavery was wrong.

It’s in Bregman’s third lecture, released this week, that the problems........

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