Dominic Sandbrook looked aghast when the Rest is history panel member from York University interrupted him. What right did he have to cut the recording of Sandbrook’s opening line of the latest episode?

‘You must drop these background narratives at the start of a new topic,’ the panel member commanded. ‘I was at a conference in Newcastle last week where we all agreed that such context setting is completely inappropriate. For a start, it always introduces bias to the later analysis.’

Sandbrook turned to his co-presenter Tom Holland with a look that read ‘How on earth do we explain the political and historic context of early twentieth century Finland without reference to prior decades of Russian and Swedish rule?’