David Starkey Talks

David Starkey
  • 4.7 (15)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Every week on David Starkey Talks I talk to guests from across the spectrum of British politics and culture, all with the same goal in mind: how do we use the unique resources of talent and history that Britain has to reforge this country anew - stronger, smarter and more assured? You can also follow my YouTube channel on youtube.com/davidstarkeytalks

  1. "This is how Reform will SMASH the Blob" | David Starkey Talks... to Danny Kruger

    2 MAY

    "This is how Reform will SMASH the Blob" | David Starkey Talks... to Danny Kruger

    The defection of Danny Kruger MP to Reform last year was one of the most significant political moments of this parliamentary term. Reform had been rising in the polls, appealing to those who felt utterly baffled and dispossessed by the failure of the 2010-2014 Conservative government. But they lacked intellectual heft and parliamentary knowledge. Kruger's brave decision to join this insurgent brand, the first sitting Conservative MP to do so, brought those things to Reform and also cleared a path for others to follow, which more will. I've been particularly interested in Danny's work because it coincides so closely with my own: it is he who is responsible for preparing Reform for the enormous challenges they will face if they win office, taking on the immense institutional opposition to nearly everything that the party will seek to do in government. In this conversation, I wanted to understand how he intends to achieve that, what he foresees as the main challenges, and whether he is fully cognisant of the difficulty of the task. I hope you find his answers interesting.

    43 min
  2. "Is Starmer a truthful man?" | David Starkey clashes with Labour's Peter Edwards

    26 APR

    "Is Starmer a truthful man?" | David Starkey clashes with Labour's Peter Edwards

    Amid the ongoing collapse of Sir Keir Starmer's premiership, it occurred to me that the one person I hadn't discussed this with was somebody who actually believes the Prime Minister is doing a good job. I speak to Labour members frequently, but even they mostly concede that Starmer has been a disaster in office, and so we end up broadly agreeing with each other on the bigger points, if not the specifics. However my guest this week was bravely willing to stump up a defence of Sir Keir; and he is Labour through and through. Peter Edwards was an adviser to a former Labour Shadow Chancellor and for years edited the LabourList publication; the equivalent of ConservativeHome for the political Right, which tracks the party's people, policies and fortunes closely. His contacts inside the party are impeccable. I really wanted to pin him down on a specific point: that having ridden into office on a wave of sanctimonious outrage at Tory sleaze, Sir Keir Starmer has proven to be at least as mendacious as his Conservative rivals, but worse, cloaks his lies with piety. As you'll see, Peter was having none of it, and what struck me about the conversation is how two people, both reasonably intelligent and informed, can come to such wildly different conclusions about contemporary events. Enjoy the episode! Thumbnail credit: “Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Northern Ireland” by Number 10, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    43 min
  3. "Is this the end for Keir Starmer?" | David Starkey Talks... to Benedict Spence

    18 APR

    "Is this the end for Keir Starmer?" | David Starkey Talks... to Benedict Spence

    Since he's entered office, every scandal that has lapped the ankles of Sir Keir Starmer has been responded to with a familiar refrain: "I wasn't to know!" The faintest whiff of moral reproach is frantically dispersed with a robust display of the former Director of Public Prosecution's moral rectitude. His righteous fury at being consistently kept in the dark knows no bounds. Cabinet ministers are wheeled out to repeat ad nauseam, "Keir Starmer is a good man!" The force of this claim has reduced with every use. By now, as it emerges that Starmer's pick for ambassador to the US, Petey Mandelson, actually failed security vetting, its potency has finally worn out completely. We are left with two possibilities. Either Sir Keir Starmer is lying, or he has so abdicated responsibility over his own government that his officials didn't see the point in informing him that the man whom he had installed in the most important diplomatic position of the British state, and on whom he expended huge political capital, was in fact a security risk. Either of these options reveals enormous character flaws in the Prime Minister that make him unfit for his office. He rose to power on the back of his sanctimonious denunciations of Boris Johnson, but at least Boris Johnson lied for a purpose, at least his government achieved something, at least he has a personality. As I discuss with Benedict Spence this week, Starmer is devoid of all these attributes. And so the British people are forced yet again to wait for their deliverance from the banality of the deep state, of which Starmer was the perfect expression, but with which even he cannot now co-exist.

    54 min
  4. "I can't forgive Nigel Farage!" | David Starkey Talks... to Connor Tomlinson

    18 APR

    "I can't forgive Nigel Farage!" | David Starkey Talks... to Connor Tomlinson

    This week I was joined by somebody whose career I have followed with interest: Connor Tomlinson. Connor and I have interacted frequently at events to do with right-wing politics, but more recently have found ourselves on either side of a growing divide in that milieu: the divide broadly that exists between those willing to support Nigel Farage's Reform, and those who insist that only Rupert Lowe's Restore Party has the answers to Britain's current travails. My intention with this discussion was to explore, intellectually, which of these camps could provide the most cogent answers to Britain's problems. While I believe we made a start on that endeavour, there is a long way to go, and I believe I'll have to have Connor back on a second time to complete the discussion. Nonetheless, I believe this episode provides a fruitful insight into the differences and similarities between the two camps. My overriding motivation in all my work is to impress upon conservatives the necessity of working together and building a coalition that can implement the real change that is necessary to save this country. I hope the frankness with which I addressed Connor constitutes a beginning of that. I hope you enjoy the episode!

    1hr 8min
  5. "Why is Reform playing it so safe?" | David Starkey looks ahead to local elections

    5 APR

    "Why is Reform playing it so safe?" | David Starkey looks ahead to local elections

    I've made no secret of my admiration for Robert Jenrick; the 'Great White Hope' of conservatism who, in my eyes and the eyes of many others, should have won the leadership of the Conservative Party. His move to Reform UK was a moment of genuine significance in the politics of the Right, and a major coup by Nigel Farage. However since his appointment as Reform's "Shadow Chancellor", the energetic radicalism that characterised Jenrick's rise to prominence seems to have ebbed. He has used his brief to adopt what might be called a new Ming vase strategy, one based upon the catastrophic Labour Party policy of not committing to anything in opposition, only for them to use lies and spin when in office to justify punishing tax increases. That approach was capped this week when Jenrick committed Reform to keeping the triple lock on pensions; an arguably unjustifiable expense given the financial straits Britain finds itself in. My regular political correspondent Mark Littlewood assuages my concerns, however. As he explains, Reform is facing a unique challenge, maintaining its radical proposition while persuading a broad enough coalition of voters that they can be responsible custodians of the State. This is an incredibly tricky balancing act that will require strict prioritisation and judicious picking of battles. As we count down to the local elections, the Reform high wire act will be buffeted and tested by the strongest winds yet.

    47 min
  6. "You are talking NONSENSE!" | Jeremy Hunt and David Starkey clash over state of Britain

    29 MAR

    "You are talking NONSENSE!" | Jeremy Hunt and David Starkey clash over state of Britain

    At the Oxford Literary Festival I hosted my first live edition of David Starkey Talks, in which I interviewed the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt about his new book, 'Can We Be Great Again? Why A Dangerous World Needs Britain'. I thought the discussion was highly illuminating both for the degree of intellectual competence that Jeremy Hunt clearly displays, but also the (in my view) utter inadequacy of his political analysis of what ails this country. Time and again we butted up against fundamental differences of what it is that the British state is for. For Jeremy, it seems to be the promotion of liberal democracy around the world. For me, it is to promote the welfare of the British people. While Jeremy speaks with pride about the surgery performed on Britain's finances during the Conservative governments of 2010-2014, and some perhaps justifiable frustration about commentaries which make it seem like government at that time should have been easy, I simply cannot ignore the macro-results of that period in our politics: which is that it left Britain poorer, more divided, and more defenceless. I respect any politician whose priority is to find solutions to the problems facing this country, but in order to find them, it's necessary to have a clear appreciation of what those problems are. And I worry that the scale of public disillusionment is lost on Mr Hunt. Ultimately, these differences must be aired so that voters can see clearly where public figures and, in this case, influential members of the Conservative Party, really sit and in what manner they will really approach the challenge of fixing Britain.

    47 min
  7. "Nick Timothy is right! We can't tiptoe around Islam" | David Starkey Talks... to Emma Trimble

    23 MAR

    "Nick Timothy is right! We can't tiptoe around Islam" | David Starkey Talks... to Emma Trimble

    If ever you needed proof that the Labour Party is beholden to Muslim voters, and increasingly sees itself in a battle for the sectarian Muslim vote against the Greens, then the cynical attacks they've launched against Nick Timothy this week have provided it. Nick Timothy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, pointed out that the proclaiming of the Muslim Adhan in Trafalgar Square, a public space of national symbolism, and the leading of mass Islamic prayers by Sadiq Khan, was not an innocuous display of public worship, but an intrusion of Islamic cultural domination into the public sphere. The argument also completely explodes the fiction that Labour's introduction of a definition for "anti-Muslim hatred" was a benign act of minority-protection. Clearly it is already being weaponised to stifle criticism of the religion. My guest this week, Emma Trimble, has had her own experiences of attempted cancellation for criticising Islam. She was subjected to appalling abuse after highlighting that many of the Pakistani rape gangs were motivated, to some extent at least, by a desire to dominate and humiliate the women of other religions - something which was well-attested to by witnesses and survivors at Rupert Lowe's rape gang inquiry. Emma also brings her specific perspective as a practicing Christian. As you will hear during our discussion, I disagree with her to some extent on the best way to tackle the Islamist threat to our society, but we both agree that it must be taking extremely seriously.

    47 min
  8. "Has Trump screwed up over Iran?" | David Starkey Talks... to Lee Cohen

    16 MAR

    "Has Trump screwed up over Iran?" | David Starkey Talks... to Lee Cohen

    This week I was joined my regular correspondent in the US, the columnist and broadcaster Lee Cohen. I had one question for him, has President Trump made a massive mistake? Up until now during Trump's second presidency, he's shown exceptional judgement in the limited and judicious use of force to achieve a specific outcome. What other president could have sensed the opportunity last June to debilitate Iran's nuclear programme during Israel's 12 Day War on the country? One single strike delivered a hammer blow not just to the Islamic Republic's capabilities but also to its prestige, and arguably led to the uprising we saw in Iran earlier this year. And then we saw his incredibly audacious capture of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, at a stroke bringing the most hostile regime in the Western hemisphere to heel. But Operation Epic Fury is quite a different thing. The confused messaging about objectives, the failure to oust the regime, the inability to do anything about Iran throttling the Strait of Hormuz and choking off huge volumes of oil and gas supply. But most of all, the very clear rowing back on a promise that has been central to Trump's appeal from the very start: that he wouldn't get America embroiled in unwinnable wars. All of these things I put to Lee, and you must decide for yourself whether his arguments in favour of Trump's decision are convincing. There's another aspect to all this. Support for Israel used to be taken for granted on the political Right, but in the United States and even here in the UK there's an emerging right-wing movement that regards the Jewish State with, shall we say, scepticism. As such the implication, or even the later-dismissed admission by Marco Rubio, that the US launched this operation at Israel's behest, has added fuel to that particular fire. Whether the effects of that shift of opinion are enough to unsettle Trump's authority remains to be seen. But it is certainly something that parties of the Right will bump up against with increasing frequency.

    44 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
15 Ratings

About

Every week on David Starkey Talks I talk to guests from across the spectrum of British politics and culture, all with the same goal in mind: how do we use the unique resources of talent and history that Britain has to reforge this country anew - stronger, smarter and more assured? You can also follow my YouTube channel on youtube.com/davidstarkeytalks

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