Who Does John Simpson Think He Is?

I've seen quite a few comments in various places noting the irony of Miss Markle telling the BBC how "disheartening" she finds it that race has been made such a "focus" thanks to "the climate in this world" while the BBC itself seemed to be banging on about little else (like an obsessive-compulsive hammer collector). 

And John Simpson, reporting on this morning's Today, kept on hammering away at the race issue too, despite using that very clip of Meghan regretting such a focus. 

Did he not spot the irony?

Anyhow, as you'll see if you read the following transcript, John had some important points to make about his own family history and the Royal Family's family history - and your and my family history too.

Can you guess what his point is likely to be (if he didn't hear his report that is)? (Clue: He's very 'BBC', so what point would he be making?)

Well it essentially boils down to this familiar BBC trope: We're a mongrel nation. 

But there was more. Anyone whose interested in genealogy and genetics will know that most of us are indeed, in some way, linked genetically ('descended') from William the Conqueror, Julius Caesar and - the one usually cited - Genghis Khan. John's example, however, was very a 'BBC' one. He told us that the Queen is descended from the Prophet Muhammad. And we're all descended from the Prophet Muhammad too. (And that includes you!)

BBC One's Who Do You Think You Are? had researched his family tree and found that his ancestry is 'mongrel nation' ancestry. He seemed to assume that this was typical. I've researched my own ancestry (not being as lazy as him) and found that my ancestry is quite different. I've gone down about three hundred years on some lines and found not a single ancestor who ever lived south of Preston. Many were "clod-hopping" farmers. And our family names, wherever I look and however many new names I come across as I go back in time, are all very local (and mostly Anglo-Saxon). Essentially, my ancestors never went anywhere. So speak for yourself, John! 

The detail in John Simpson's report that particularly tickled my hideously northern English funny bone was where he effortlessly exemplified the mindset of someone David Goodhart would call an 'anywhere' (as opposed to a 'somewhere' like me) - the kind of people described in the New Statesman as "the liberal Europhile establishment, comfortable about immigration and globalisation"...

...yes, John Simpson of the BBC has a "cleaning lady". (Of course he does!). And she's Brazilian. (Of course she is!)

That was a 'beyond satire' moment, reinforcing every stereotype people have of metropolitan liberals.

(I bet he wouldn't even understand that if he read this post).

In summary, who else but someone like John Simpson of the BBC would use a piece about the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan to push the 'the UK is a mongrel nation' angle and the 'Muslims R Us' angle simultaneously?

Anyhow, here's the transcript:

John Simpson: Social attitudes change really fast nowadays. Not long ago no member of the Royal Family would have thought of marrying anyone who wasn't, frankly, white. Public opinion would have ruled it out, just as, in the 1950s, Group Captain Peter Townsend was ruled out as a husband for Princess Margaret because he was divorced. And before the First World War it would have been really hard for a prince of the blood (as they used to say) to marry a commoner. Meghan Markle's mother is African-American and her father is white, and her mixed-race heritage has been scrutinised in some of the press. It even led to Prince Harry issuing a statement last year saying his then girlfriend had been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Earlier this week, sitting beside Prince Harry, Meghan Markle discussed her ethnicity with Mishal Husain. 

Meghan Markle: Of course it's disheartening. You know, it's a shame that that is the climate in this world to focus that much on that, that would be discriminatory in that sense, but I think, you know, the end of the day I'm really just proud of who I am and where I come from, and we have never put any focus on that. We just focused on who we are as a couple, and so when you take all those extra layers away and all of that noise I think it makes it really easy to just enjoy being together and tune all the rest of that out.

Yet the fact is just about all of us have some pretty unexpected ancestors. According to Debrett's Peerage the Queen is descended from the Prophet Muhammad through her 15th century ancestor King Edward the Fourth. When I talked to an academic expert on ethnicity, Dr Daniel Falush of Bath University's Milner Centre for Evolution, it didn't surprise him.

Dr Daniel Falush: Absolutely not at all. So you go back a thousand years, you have a billion ancestors. So everyone who lived then who has left descendants will essentially, to a first approximation, have left descendants to everyone living in Europe. So, and since Muhammad had children and grandchildren it's sure to include him. John Simpson: Sure? Dr Daniel Falush: Sure, yes. Absolutely sure. John Simpson: And me? Dr Daniel Falush: Yes, absolutely. The further back you go the more interleaved it becomes and the more similar we all are in our underlying ancestry.

My wife comes from South Africa and her maiden name is Kruger. Our cleaning lady, who's Brazilian, is also called Kruger. And a historian of the family says everyone with that name has the same German ancestor. As for me I've always assumed I was simply the product of clod-hopping Suffolk farmers. Then I was invited onto a familiar slightly nerve-wracking programme Who Do You Think You Are? 

BBC announcer: Now, the last in the series, BBC reporter John Simpson uncovers his adventurous ancestors now on BBC One.

It turned out I had Portuguese and Spanish ancestors and my great grandmother eloped with a Texan cowboy, Samuel Franklin Cody. He ran a Wild West show and in 1908 became the first man to fly in Britain. And my great-grandmother was the second woman in the world to fly. So in my case the cocktail shaker contain some pretty unpredictable ingredients  The same with Meghan Markle - and Prince Harry, the descendant of the Prophet. And the same, I'd guess, with you - and with everyone else who happens to be listening.