David Starkey

David Robert Starkey Template:Postnom (born 3 January 1945) is an English<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> historian, radio and television presenter, with views that he describes as conservative. The only child of Quaker parents, he attended Kendal Grammar School before reading history at Cambridge on a scholarship. There he specialised in Tudor history, writing a thesis on King Henry VIII's household. From Cambridge, he moved to the London School of Economics, where he was a lecturer in history until 1998. He has written several books on the Tudors.

Starkey first appeared on television in 1977. While a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 4 debate programme The Moral Maze, his acerbic tongue earned him the sobriquet of "rudest man in Britain";<ref name="Sunday Herald"/> his frequent appearances on Question Time have been received with criticism and applause. Starkey has presented several historical documentaries. In 2002, he signed a £2 million contract with Channel 4 for 25 hours of programming, and in 2011 was a contributor on the Channel 4 series Jamie's Dream School.

Starkey was widely censured for a comment he made during a podcast interview with Darren Grimes in June 2020 that was said to be racist, for which he later apologised. Immediately afterwards, he resigned as an honorary fellow of his alma mater, Fitzwilliam College, had several honorary doctorates and fellowships revoked, book contracts and memberships of learned societies cancelled, and his Medlicott Medal withdrawn.<ref name="WW2022" />

Early years and education

Starkey was born on 3 January 1945 in Kendal, Westmorland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Profile">Template:Cite web</ref> He is the only child of Robert Starkey and Elsie Lyon, Quakers who had married 10 years previously in Bolton, at a Friends meeting house. His father, the son of a cotton spinner, was a foreman in a washing-machine factory, while his mother followed in her father's footsteps and became a cotton weaver and later a cleaner.<ref name="History Man"/><ref name=detective>Template:Cite news</ref> They were both born in Oldham and moved to Kendal in the 1930s during the Great Depression.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> He was raised in an austere and frugal environment of near-poverty, with his parents often unemployed for long periods of time; an environment which, he later stated, taught him "the value of money".<ref name="ind">Template:Cite news</ref> Starkey is equivocal about his mother, describing her as both "wonderful", in that she helped develop his ambition, and "monstrous", intellectually frustrated and living through her son.<ref name="History Man"/> "She was a wonderful but also very frightening parent. Finally, she was a Pygmalion. She wanted a creature, she wanted something she had made."<ref name="Sunday Herald"/> Her dominance contrasted sharply to his father, who was "poetic, reflective, rather solitary...as a father he was weak."<ref name="Sunday Herald"/> Their relationship was "distant", but improved after his mother's death in 1977.<ref name="Sunday Herald"/>

Starkey was born with two club feet. One was fixed early, while the other had to be operated on several times.<ref name="Did I really say that"/> He also suffered from polio.<ref name="Telegraph2009"/> He suffered a nervous breakdown at secondary school, aged 13, and was taken by his mother to a boarding house in Southport, where he spent several months recovering.<ref name="Telegraph2009">Template:Cite news</ref> Starkey blamed the episode on the unfamiliar experience of being in a "highly competitive environment".<ref name="Did I really say that"/> He ultimately excelled at Kendal Grammar School, winning debating prizes and appearing in school plays.<ref name="Laughing">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="A man with a past"/>

Although he showed an early inclination towards science, he chose instead to study history.<ref name="in conversation with">Template:Cite web</ref> A scholarship enabled his entry into Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge,<ref name="Exclusive interview"/> where he gained a first-class degree, a PhD and a fellowship.<ref name="History Man"/>

Starkey was fascinated by King Henry VIII, and his doctoral thesis focused on the Tudor monarch's inner household. His supervisor was Professor Sir Geoffrey Elton, an expert on the Tudor period. Starkey claimed that with age his mentor became "tetchy" and "arrogant". In 1983, when Elton was awarded a knighthood, Starkey derided one of his essays, Cromwell Redivivus, and Elton responded by writing an "absolutely shocking" review of a collection of essays Starkey had edited. Starkey later expressed his remorse over the spat: "I regret that the thing happened at all."<ref name="Exclusive interview">Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

Starkey was a fellow at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, from 1970 to 1972.<ref name="Who's Who">Template:Cite web</ref> Bored at Cambridge<ref name="Did I really say that"/> and attracted to London's gay scene, he secured a position as a lecturer in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics in 1972.<ref name="History Man"/> He claimed to be an "excessively enthusiastic advocate of promiscuity",<ref name="A man with a past">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Who's Who"/> seeking to liberate himself from his mother, who strongly disapproved of his homosexuality.<ref name="Sunday Herald"/><ref name="A man with a past"/> He ended his 30-year career as a university teacher in 1998, later citing boredom and irritation with the administrative demands of modern academic life.<ref name="Did I really say that">Template:Cite news</ref> Having already written and presented the 1984 Channel 4 documentary series This Land of England, he began to write and present several history documentaries for BBC television, beginning with the Indie Award winning Henry VIII (1998).<ref name="Who's Who"/>

Starkey had already achieved notoriety as a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 debate programme The Moral Maze,<ref name="Laughing"/> debating moral issues of the day alongside fellow panellists Rabbi Hugo Gryn, Sir Roger Scruton and the journalist Janet Daley since 1992. He soon acquired a reputation for abrasiveness. He explained in 2007 that his personality possesses "a tendency towards showmanship... towards self-indulgence and explosion and repartee and occasional silliness and going over the top."<ref name="A man with a past"/> The Daily Mail gave him the sobriquet of "the rudest man in Britain", to which Starkey was said to have told friends, "Don't worry darlings, it's worth at least £100,000 a year",<ref name="express1">Template:Cite news</ref> claiming that his character was part of a "convenient image".<ref name="Sunday Herald">Template:Cite web</ref> He once attacked George Austin, the Archdeacon of York, over "his fatness, his smugness, and his pomposity",<ref name="Did I really say that"/> but after a nine-year stint on the programme he left, citing his boredom with being "Dr. Rude" and its move to an evening slot.<ref name="History Man">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Did I really say that"/><ref name="A man with a past"/>

From 1995, he also spent three years at Talk Radio UK, presenting Starkey on Saturday, later Starkey on Sunday. An interview with Denis Healey proved to be one of his most embarrassing moments: "I mistakenly thought that he had become an amiable old buffer who would engage in amusing conversation, and he tore me limb from limb. I laugh about it now, but I didn't feel like laughing about it at the time."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Starkey is well known for his historical analyses of Henry VIII and his Court

His first television appearance was in 1977, on Granada Television's Behave Yourself with Russell Harty.<ref name="Did I really say that"/> He was a prosecution witness in the 1984 ITV programme The Trial of Richard III,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Unverifiable whose jury acquitted the king of the murder of the Princes in the Tower on the grounds of insufficient evidence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His television documentaries on The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were ratings successes.<ref name="Laughing"/> His breathless delivery of the script, with noticeable breaths and choppy cadence, is widely imitated.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2002, he signed a £2 million contract with Channel 4 to produce 25 hours of television, including Monarchy, a chronicle of the history of English kings and queens from Anglo-Saxon times onward.<ref name="Did I really say that"/><ref name="Laughing"/> He presented the 2009 series Henry: Mind of a Tyrant, which Brian Viner, a reviewer for the Independent, called "highly fascinating",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> although A. A. Gill was less complimentary, calling it "Hello! history".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In an interview about the series for the Radio Times, Starkey complained that too many historians had focused not on Henry, but on his wives. Referring to a "feminised history", he said: "so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience."<ref name="Radio Times">Template:Cite news</ref> This prompted the historian Lucy Worsley to describe his comments as misogynistic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> More recently, in 2011, he taught five history lessons in Channel 4's Jamie's Dream School,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Jamie">Template:Cite news</ref> after which he criticised the state education system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1984, Starkey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and in 1994 a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also made an Honorary Fellow by his Cambridge College, Fitzwilliam College in 2006. From 2007 to 2015 he was Honorary Visiting Professor of History at the University of Kent and subsequently Lecturer at Goldsmiths' College (2017), Visiting Professor of History of Canterbury Christ Church University (2018–20) and Honorary Professor of History at the University of Buckingham (2019–20).<ref name="Who's Who"/><ref>Template:Cite web Template:Cite web</ref> He has worked as curator on several exhibitions, including an exhibit in 2003 on Elizabeth I, following which he had lunch with her namesake, Elizabeth II. Several years later he told a reporter that the monarch had no interest in her predecessors, other than those who followed her great-grandfather, Edward VII. "I don't think she's at all comfortable with anybody – I would hesitate to use the word intellectual – but it's useful. I think she's got elements a bit like Goebbels in her attitude to culture – you remember: 'every time I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver.' I think the queen reaches for her mask."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His remarks were criticised by Penny Junor, a royal biographer, and Robert Lacey, a royal historian.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 25 June 2012, Starkey gave his lecture 'Head of Our Morality: why the twentieth-century British monarchy matters' <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> at The Marc Fitch Lectures.

Views

Political views

Benjamin Disraeli by Cornelius Jabez Hughes, 1878.

Starkey's political views have changed over the years from what he called "middle-of-the-road Labour left until the end of the 1970s" to a conservative outlook, which he attributed to economic failures of the Callaghan government.<ref name="ind" /> Starkey blamed the Callaghan administration for "blow[ing] the nation's finances".<ref name="ind" /> He is a supporter of one-nation conservatism and believes that Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was a great symbol of this. He has written that Disraeli was "exotic, slippery and had a gift for language and phrase-making", drawing similarities with the rhetorical style of former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He argues that the working classes need more explicit "nationalism" of the type demonstrated by Disraeli.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He believes that Disraelianism could strengthen the Anglo-American "conservative" alliance between US and the UK. Despite Johnson being a Conservative Prime Minister, Starkey regarded him as "a liberal", so he doubted whether Johnson would ever take this view.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

During the 1980s he was an active Conservative Party member, and he was a Conservative candidate for Islington Borough Council in 1986 in Tollington ward,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and in 1990 in Hillrise ward.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Following Labour's victory in the 1997 general election, he bemoaned the Conservatives in opposition, criticising Michael Howard in particular: "I knew Michael Howard was going to be a disaster as soon as he opposed top-up fees, either out of sentimentality or calculated expediency so that it might get him a bit of the student vote...Instead of backing Tony Blair, causing revolution in the Labour Party, the Conservatives have been whoring after strange gods, coming up with increasingly strange policies."<ref>Template:Citation</ref> He likened Gordon Brown to the fictional Kenneth Widmerpool, continuing, "It seems to me that with Brown there is a complete sense of humour and charm bypass."<ref name="in conversation with"/> Of Ed Miliband, in 2015 he said "He is a man of high ambition and low talent – the worst possible combination. His whole language at the moment is soak the rich, hate the rich."<ref name="Telegraphmiliband">Template:Cite news</ref>

During the 2011 Conservative Party Conference he spoke at a fringe meeting, declaring Mayor Boris Johnson to be a "jester-despot" and the Prime Minister, David Cameron, as having "absolutely no strategy" for running the country. He urged the party to re-engage with the working class rather than the "Guardian-reading middle class".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2015 he said that while Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, had introduced some meaningful reforms to education and welfare policies, they had not made large enough cuts to the UK's budget deficit.<ref name="Telegraphmiliband"/>

Starkey prefers radical changes to the UK's constitution in line with the federal system used by the United States, although in an interview with Iain Dale he expressed his support for the monarchy, the Queen and Prince Charles.<ref name="in conversation with"/> In the run-up to the UK Alternative Vote referendum, he was a signatory on a letter to The Times, which urged people to vote against the proposals.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Starkey thinks the modern UK House of Commons has become a weak political institution and that it should return to its core value of being in defiance of state authority, as it was in its origin. He believes the House too often gives way to the state, such as with the police being allowed to search the place without a warrant. This occurred in 2008 with the searching of the Westminster office of Conservative politician Damian Green after the custodians of the House, the Speaker and the Serjeant at Arms, allowed the police to search the place without a warrant.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Starkey was a supporter of the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality ("Torche"),<ref group="nb">Starkey later resigned from this post.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref></ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and during one of many appearances on the BBC's Question Time he criticised Jeffrey Archer over his views on the age of homosexual consent.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2012, he described himself as "torn" on the issue of same-sex marriage, describing marriage as "part of the baggage of heterosexual society."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2009, Mike Russell, then the Scottish Government Minister for Culture and External Affairs, called on him to apologise for his declaration on the programme that Scotland, Ireland and Wales are "feeble little countries".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Starkey responded that it had been a joke regarding the lack of necessity for the English to outwardly celebrate their nationalism, approvingly quoting H. G. Wells's observation that "the English are the only nation without national dress".<ref name="in conversation with"/> He described Alex Salmond, then Scottish First Minister, as a "Caledonian Hitler" who thinks that "the English, like the Jews, are everywhere".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In August 2014, Starkey was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In June 2015 in an interview for The Sunday Times Starkey compared the Scottish National Party (SNP) with the Nazi Party.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He said:

You have as a symbol the twisted cross: the saltire or the swastika. You have a passionate belief in self-sufficiency: known by the Nazis as autarky and the Scots as oil. And also you have the propensity of your elderly and middle-aged supporters to expose their knees.<ref name="snpscotsman">Template:Cite news</ref>

SNP member of parliament Kirsten Oswald described Starkey's comments as "deeply offensive" to the Jewish community and SNP voters, and described Starkey as a "serial utterer of bile and bilge".<ref name="snpscotsman"/>

European Union

Starkey is very critical of the European Union (EU). As a result, he supported the "Leave" vote in the 2016 EU referendum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This is because, Starkey argues, the United Kingdom is best off as a self-governing nation, and the EU conflicts with this notion of self-government. Furthermore, he believes that the continuing support for the ideas of national pride and sovereignty, not xenophobia, in the UK were the biggest factors behind the UK's decision to leave the EU. He argues that the support for these ideas is what makes the UK different from the other EU member states which, as a result of the legacy of World War Two, tend to believe that nationalism is the cause of war and so joined the EU to prevent this.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Better source needed

As a historian, Starkey presents Brexit in a wider historical context to try to show its importance in British history. He makes comparisons between Brexit and Henry VIII's split from Rome and the Reformation that followed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He believes the Reformation sowed the seeds of Euroscepticism, particularly in England, and the nation's "semi-detached relationship with continental Europe". This had its origin with Henry VIII because "nobody before Henry would make any argument about England being much different from the rest of Europe. It was Henry who turns England into a defensible island, who literally fortifies the English coastline. It really is Henry that turns England into a genuine island." He claimed that Henry VIII could be considered the first Brexiteer. As Starkey explained in an interview in 2018, "The Roman Church was a super-national organisation with its own system of law, its own language, governance and own system of taxation. In other words, exactly like the European Union! And it's no accident at all that the EU was founded by the Treaty of Rome."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He explains that Henry VIII fought on the grounds of England ruling itself, which is analogous to the Brexit debates.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Starkey argues that "Remainers have somehow got the notion that we get our rights and liberties from Europe" but that, in fact, the English created their own values over their 800-year history.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Better source needed He believes that Brexit was a reaffirmation of those values, but was nevertheless a "deeply irrational vote, not about what will make us better off, but rather, 'we'll be poorer, but we'll be freeTemplate:'".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Religion

Starkey is an atheist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He has described the Catholic Church as being "riddled with corruption".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, he has often defended the right for Christians to hold their beliefs, arguing that they should have the right to their views and penalising them for it is "intolerant, oppressive and tyrannical".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Magna Carta

Starkey believes the royal charter of rights Magna Carta is of great importance. He has often spoken about it and has written about it most notably in his book Magna Carta: The True Story Behind the Charter (2015). He also presented a television documentary on the subject David Starkey's Magna Carta, in which he argued that Magna Carta is a steadying force for constitutions. He believes that Magna Carta is essential in keeping peace and constraints on the state and the public and says that it is this rather shaky but very important 800 year old document that has led to a "constitutional edifice" developing in the UK.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Starkey often speaks about the political implications of Magna Carta in present-day politics. He believes the modern UK state appears to be fragmenting and would be helped by the core principles of the charter with a new charter of liberties or a new William Marshal figure.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In a review of Starkey's book on Magna Carta, medieval historian James Masschaele said that Starkey viewed the barons as republican figures.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref>

England riots and black culture

Starkey attracted criticism in August 2011 for comments he made on BBC Two's Newsnight programme, in an episode discussing the 2011 England riots where he was a panel member alongside Owen Jones and Dreda Say Mitchell.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Citing Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, he said:<ref name="telegraph1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Riots">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="guardian1">Template:Cite news</ref>

His prophesy was absolutely right in one sense. The Tiber did not foam with blood but flames lambent, they wrapped around Tottenham and wrapped around Clapham. But it wasn't inter-community violence. This is where he was absolutely wrong.

What has happened is that the substantial section of the chavs that you wrote about [Jones, in his then-recent book Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class] have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion.

And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that's been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.

He also said that when listening to the voice of David Lammy, whom he described as "an archetypal successful black man", one "would think he was white".<ref name="Riots"/> In response, Mitchell criticised Starkey for focusing on "black culture", saying: "black communities are not homogenous. So there are black cultures. Lots of different black cultures."<ref name="guardian1"/>

Following the programme, both of Starkey's fellow panellists condemned the remarks: Jones described it as a "career-ending moment" for Starkey,<ref name="telegraph1" /> while Mitchell wrote in The Guardian that "it is [...] very difficult to argue with crass stupidity", calling his views on the matter "ignorant and confused".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The then-leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, said that the remarks were "racist comments, frankly, and there is no place for them in our society".<ref name="Riots" /> David Lammy called them "irrelevant".<ref name="telegraph1"/>

Rod Liddle argued in support of the remarks in his column in The Spectator.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Writing for The Telegraph, author Toby Young defended Starkey, saying that he had not been talking about black culture in general.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Also in The Telegraph, Starkey argued his views had been distorted, he referred only to a "particular sort" of "black culture", and that the educationalists Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh<ref>Template:Cite news.</ref> supported the substance of his Newsnight comments.<ref name="DTele 19.08.2011">Template:Cite news</ref>

The programme was broadcast on Friday night; by the following Monday, the BBC had received 696 complaints, and the broadcasting regulator Ofcom a further 103, about the comments, and a petition demanding a public apology from the BBC had attracted over 3,600 signatures.<ref name="guardian_complaints">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="telegraph2">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="maryrose" /> Ofcom deemed the comments to have been part of a "serious and measured discussion" and took no action, and Starkey described the reaction as "hysteria about race".<ref name="telegraph2" /><ref name="independent_2015">Template:Cite news</ref>

In the aftermath of the Newsnight broadcast, 102 university historians signed an open letter, published in the Times Higher Education magazine, asking broadcasters to "think carefully" before inviting Starkey to discuss topics beyond his field of expertise. They asked that, if he was invited, to not allow him to "bring our profession into disrepute" by introducing him as "the historian, David Starkey", as the BBC had done previously.<ref name="THE_letter">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The letter said that "his crass generalisations about black culture and white culture as oppositional, monolithic entities demonstrate a failure to grasp the subtleties of race and class that would disgrace a first-year history undergraduate" and that he "displayed some of the worst practices of an academic" in his interactions with the other panellists, saying that he "belittled and derided them" instead of responding thoughtfully.<ref name="THE_letter"/><ref name="politics2011">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2012, Jones wrote in The Independent that the controversy had been "one of the ugliest episodes of the backlash" against the riots.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Other comments on race and British culture

In a June 2012 debate Starkey was criticised for stating that the perpetrators of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring had values "entrenched in the foothills of the Punjab or wherever it is" and were "acting within their cultural norm".<ref name="times1">Template:Cite news</ref> He was accused by his fellow panelist writer Laurie Penny, of "playing xenophobia and national prejudice for laughs".<ref name="times1" /> In 2013, he criticised the inclusion of the British-Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole in British school history curriculums, which he argued unduly promoted her and her work.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 2015, Starkey, on a television programme, called political journalist Mehdi Hasan "Ahmed" and said that "nothing important" had been written in Arabic for 500 years. He also appeared to imply that a female victim of a child sexual abuse grooming gang was at fault for the abuse she had experienced. He received a large amount of criticism on Twitter for these comments.<ref name="pinknews2015">Template:Cite web</ref>

In November 2015, the University of Cambridge dropped a fundraising video featuring Starkey after a backlash from staff and students.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A letter signed by hundreds of students and staff criticised Starkey's involvement in the video due to him "repeatedly making racist statements".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In May 2023, speaking to GB News, Starkey expressed his belief that prime minister Rishi Sunak was "not fully grounded in" British culture.<ref name=Guardian_2023-05-4>Template:Cite news</ref> When the host, Andrew Pierce, asked him to clarify Starkey confirmed that he attributed this to Sunak's Hindu religion.<ref name=Guardian_2023-05-4/> Starkey later denied his comments were racist, saying he was referring to the prime minister being a "typical international liberal" with no interest in British "values".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Black Lives Matter and slavery

2020 comments

On 30 June 2020, in a podcast interview with Darren Grimes, Starkey spoke about the Black Lives Matter movement. Starkey suggested that people should not "go on about" slavery because it had been abolished in 1833 and that "slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain would there? An awful lot of them survived".<ref name="quote2020">Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref name="indy2">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He had made the same point in a column eight days earlier except without the use of the word "damn".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Starkey's comments were rebuffed by former Chancellor Sajid Javid, who said they were racist and that they serve as "a reminder of the appalling views that still exist", and they were widely described as racist in the media.<ref name="maryrose" /><ref name="indy2" /> Historian David Olusoga, praised by Starkey in the same broadcast, described the comments as "truly disgusting. And by the same ridiculous, twisted logic the Holocaust would not be counted as a genocide".<ref name="indy2"/>

As a result, the Mary Rose Trust accepted his resignation from the board of trustees<ref name="maryrose">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and the Historical Association announced on Twitter that it would withdraw the Medlicott Medal it had awarded him 20 years previously.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref> Fitzwilliam College of Cambridge University distanced themselves from his comments and later accepted his resignation as an honorary fellow on 3 July 2020.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="fitz-update">Template:Cite web</ref> Canterbury Christ Church University, where Starkey had been a visiting professor, removed him from that role in response to his "completely unacceptable" remarks.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The magazine History Today also removed him from their editorial board.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref> Lancaster University revoked Starkey's honorary degree after an investigation found that his comments were "racist and contradictory to the values of the University".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The University of Kent launched a formal review of his honorary graduate status.<ref name="Kent">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="maryrose" /> HarperCollins terminated its book deal with Starkey and his previous publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, has also said that they "will not be publishing any further books by him".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Vintage Books announced it would be reviewing the status of books by Starkey in their back catalogue.<ref>Vintage Books Template:Webarchive on Twitter.</ref> Also on 3 July 2020, at a meeting of the Royal Historical Society, the society's council resolved that Starkey should be asked to resign his fellowship with immediate effect.<ref name="RHS">Template:Cite web</ref> On 6 July 2020, Starkey resigned his fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London at the request of its council.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

On 25Template:NbspSeptember 2020, the Metropolitan Police opened an investigation into the interview over an allegation of a public order offence, which Starkey has stated was strongly supported by Labour leader Keir Starmer. In October, Starkey was investigated by the police for "stirring up racial hatred" through the comments he made in the podcast with Darren Grimes. In regard to the allegations, Starkey said that he did not "intend to stir up racial hatred and there was nothing about the circumstances of the broadcast which made it likely to do so" and also that the investigation by the police was "neither proportionate nor in the best interests of preserving proper freedom of expression".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 14Template:NbspOctober the police dropped their investigation saying that "it is no longer proportionate that this investigation continues".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This followed a free speech backlash from several major UK politicians such as then Home Secretary Priti Patel who said the law should protect freedom of speech as a "general principle" which should not be violated.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Following the news of the ending of the investigation, Starkey said: "The investigation should never of course have begun. From the beginning it was misconceived, oppressive and designed to misuse the criminal law to curtail the proper freedom of expression and debateTemplate:Nbsp... freedom is our birthright; and it is more important than ever at this critical juncture in our nation's history."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Grimes and Starkey subsequently launched a formal complaint against the Metropolitan Police accusing them of being biased against them and acting in "deference" to the Black Lives Matter movement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

2023 comments

In May 2023 at the National Conservatism Conference, organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Starkey said that "white culture" is under threat from the Black Lives Matter movement and proponents of critical race theory who are "not what they pretend to be" and who he described are attempting to destroy "the entire legitimacy of the Western cultural tradition". He stated that said conservatives had to defend the "uniqueness of the Anglo-American tradition" against "barbarians".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He disputed the "idea that they are there to defend black lives" as "preposterous", saying that "they only care about the symbolic destruction of white culture" that they see as "fundamentally morally defective", comparing it to "exactly what was done to German culture because of Nazism and the Holocaust".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Starkey commented that "the determination is to replace the Holocaust with slavery" and "this is why Jews are under such attack from the left", because "there is jealousy of the moral primacy of the Holocaust and a determination to replace it with slavery".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Starkey lived for many years with his partner, James Brown, a publisher and book designer, until the latter's death in 2015.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The couple had three homes: a house in Highbury, a manor house in Kent, and another in Chestertown, Maryland, US.<ref name="A man with a past"/> Starkey previously lived at John Spencer Square in Canonbury, Islington.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Honours

Starkey was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2007 Birthday Honours for services to history.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

Commonwealth honours

Commonwealth honours

Country	Date	Appointment	Post-nominal letters
Template:Flagu	2007	Commander of the Order of the British Empire	CBE

Scholastic

University degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree
Template:Flagu		Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge	First-class honours Bachelor of Arts (BA) in History
Template:Flagu		Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History

Chancellorships, visitorships, governorships, rectorships and fellowships

Location	Date	School	Position
Template:Flagu	until 2015	University of Kent	Honorary Visiting Professor of History <ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu	2006Template:Spaced ndash3 July 2020	Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge	Honorary Fellow <ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu	until 3 July 2020	Canterbury Christ Church University	Visiting Professor of History <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Honorary degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree	Status
Template:Flagu	21 July 2004	University of Lancaster	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) <ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	Revoked on 24 July 2020<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu	11 July 2006	University of Kent	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	Revoked in 2020<ref name="WW2022">Template:Who's Who </ref><ref name="auto"/>
Template:Flagu	March 2019	University of Buckingham	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) <ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	Revoked on 3 July 2020<ref name="UBuck">Template:Cite web</ref>

Memberships and fellowships

Learned societies

Location	Date	Organisation	Position
Template:Flagu	1984Template:Spaced ndash13 July 2020	Royal Historical Society	Fellow (FRHistS) <ref name="RHS"/>
Template:Flagu	1994Template:Spaced ndash6 July 2020	Society of Antiquaries of London	Fellow (FSA) <ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu	1996Template:Spaced ndash2005	The Society for Court Studies	President<ref name="WW2022"/>

Museums and trusts

Location	Date	Organisation	Position
Template:Flagu	2008Template:Spaced ndash3 July 2020	Mary Rose Museum	Trustee and Hon. Commodore<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Flagu	2005Template:Spaced ndash2020'	National Maritime Museum	Hon. Commodore<ref name ="WW2022" />

Awards

Location	Date	Institution	Award
Template:Flagu	2001; withdrawn on 3 July 2020	The Historical Association	The Medlicott Medal<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Work

Books

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• Template:Cite book (A compilation of The Monarchy of England: The Beginnings, Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity and some new material)
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Television

• Henry VIII (1998, revised 2001)
• Elizabeth (2000)
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII (2001)
• Edward and Mary: The Unknown Tudors (2002)
• David Starkey: Reinventing the Royals (2002)
• Monarchy by David Starkey (2004–2007)
• Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant (2009)
• Kate and William: Romance and the Royals (2011)
• Jamie's Dream School (2011)
• The Churchills (2012)
• David Starkey's Music and Monarchy (2013)
• Britain's Tudor Treasure: A Night at Hampton Court, co-presented with Lucy Worsley (2015)
• David Starkey's Magna Carta (2015)
• Reformation: Europe's Holy War (2017)

Applications

• Kings and Queens by David Starkey for iPhone and iPad (2011)

References

Footnotes

Notes

Further reading

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External links

• "Dr David Starkey, CBE, FSA Authorised Biography", Debrett's People of Today
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