Niall Ferguson’s enemies can’t accuse him of racism, so they hope the homophobe charge will work its poison.

Is it homophobic to argue that it’s mainly gay men who keep the flame of popular culture alive? If so, then Simon Napier Bell has some grovelling to do. Napier Bell, as I’m sure you all know, is the rock impresario who has managed everyone from the Yardbirds to Wham!, and who a few years ago wrote an excellent book on the music business called Black Vinyl, White Powder.

At least I thought it was excellent at the time. What I realise with hindsight, though, is that the book was in fact deeply offensive in its reductive and stereotypical view of homosexual behaviour. It argued that gay men — unburdened by the shackles of responsibility that come with parenthood — tend to go on clubbing for years, even decades, after their heterosexual contemporaries have given it up. This means, contended Napier Bell, that gay men serve at least two vital functions in the development of popular music: on the one hand as insatiable novelty seekers who keep it fresh; on the other as guardians of the old traditions, ensuring that even as music changes it remains rooted in its past.