What sort of country do we today live in that sites Zulu as being racist.If our Richly diverse communities take offence then i would personally guide them to the nearest ferry

So when the Silver Screen Cinema in Folkestone announced a special screening of Zulu to raise money for the Armed Forces charity SSAFA, they could hardly have made a better choice. Or so you might have thought.

But some people see things differently. Almost unbelievably, this week it emerged that more than two dozen signed an open letter to the town’s mayor, urging him to cancel the screening.

Their explanation is, in its way, a masterpiece of ignorance. ‘We believe,’ they write, ‘that the choice of the film Zulu, with its inaccurate portrayal of historical events and its distortions and racist overtones could have a negative effect on relationships within the changing and richly diverse communities here in Folkestone.’ Where do you start with all this? Is Zulu markedly less accurate than other films (not least Hollywood’s recent versions of history, such as Saving Private Ryan, which ignored British and Russian involvement in World War II)?