Best of 2021: David Lammy schools caller who tells him he'll 'never be English'

27 December 2021, 12:38

David Lammy schools caller who tells him he's "not English"

This is the moment in 2021 when David Lammy schooled a caller who told him he will "never be English".

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The exchange between the Labour MP and caller Jean took place in March.

Having heard Jean tell him that he will "never be English", the Labour MP said to her: "Britain 400 years ago started going out into the world. It colonised and conquered a lot of the world.

"A lot of the world has ended up coming back to the mother country. My parents were part of that generation who came from the Caribbean.

"When I took a DNA test I actually had Scottish in me...And here I am, having grown up in this country, have been born of this country.

"And actually the truth is it's a myth that there's one English ethnicity. There's not, because England has always been a country in which Huguenots, Danes, all sorts of people have passed through.

"So when you say you are English, I'm not saying that doesn't mean something to you and matter hugely...But [I'm saying] that, for me, the fact that I was born here and the fact that my sensibilities are English mean that I want to claim that heritage as well."

Thank you for listening to LBC through the year. Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.