Interview: David Starkey

'Forgive me..’.  Words that can strike terror into the hearts of witnesses on the BBC Radio Four’s Moral Maze as Dr David Starkey stalks his next mouse in preparation for the kill.  Like Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth, Starkey can be a resolute executioner when he thinks fit.  Like them, too, he strives to clothe a combative personality in the correct outward forms. Immaculately garbed and groomed, formidably and forcefully articulate, Starkey can appear armed cap-à-pé to those who fear him. Yet the apparel probably conceals as much of the man as it proclaims. Despite his public prickliness, Starkey can be a kind and conscientious colleague and teacher sensitive to the person beneath the posture, deeply conscious of the historical impact of human nature with all its frailties, of the all-important role of individual quirk and nuance, preference and prejudice. To Starkey, the pageantry of the past is prelude to the real drama – the intersection of power and personality.