David Starkey

David Starkey (born 1945) is an historian and radio and television presenter.

He was born and brought up in Kendal, and studied at Cambridge and the London School of Economics.He claimed to be an "excessively enthusiastic advocate of promiscuity", liberating himself from his mother's intensity; she strongly disapproved of his homosexuality.

As an historian, he has a particular interest in, and enthusiasm for, the Tudors, and has present television documentaries on this period.

Starkey lives with his partner, James Brown, a publisher and book designer. The couple have two homes: a house in Highbury and a manor house in Kent.

In the 1990s he was chairman of TORCHE, the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality.

He was listed in the Pink List 2000, but the Pink List 2010 put him in the "Rogues' Gallery", saying:
 * "The Tudor expert made it to No 4 last year, but in 2010 his notorious acid tongue finally obscured all academic prowess, with ex-culture secretary Ben Bradshaw ("The French take culture seriously. We have Ben Bradshaw") and female historians (writers of "historical Mills and Boon") among those on the receiving end."