PRESS ASSOCIATION -- The BBC has defended a Newsnight debate which prompted almost 700 complaints about historian David Starkey's "offensive" views.
The writer and broadcaster was a guest on the BBC Two news show on Friday to take part in a discussion about last week's riots.
But the BBC said his comments had prompted complaints from viewers who felt his contribution was "inappropriate and racially offensive".
Some among the 696 who had registered their complaints by Monday afternoon felt Dr Starkey's views were not challenged sufficiently.
Labour leader Ed Miliband also weighed in to brand his comments "outrageous". He said all political parties should condemn the historian's "racist" views.
Dr Starkey had taken part in a discussion chaired by presenter Emily Maitlis, alongside author Owen Jones, who wrote Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Classes.
He said: "What has happened is that the substantial section of the 'chavs' that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.
"Black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together. This language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has intruded in England. This is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country."
He went on to say that the Tottenham MP David Lammy - whose parents are from Guyana - sounded white. "If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was white," Dr Starkey said during the ten-minute discussion.
Mr Lammy has since called Dr Starkey's views "irrelevant".