David Starkey: In Unhappier Times

Another day, another David Starkey story. This from the eminent human rights barrister and professor Conor Gearty, who writes of a TV debate in the late 1980s in which he was pitted against the historian and patois-hating riots doomsayer. The debate, on a programme chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby, "involved me taking a civil libertarian line critical of the Thatcher government, and Starkey saying things weren't at all bad", Gearty writes. "Then an incredible thing happened. Starkey came out on TV – declared himself gay, but unpersecuted. Dimbleby turned, delighted, to me: 'So what do you make of that, then, Dr Gearty, ah ha?' ... Clearly they all knew it was coming, a fab scoop on as-live TV. Then another amazing thing. Starkey didn't know me, had never met me, but had listened to enough of what I had said to detect an Irish accent ... 'Now Conor, like me, comes from a poor background ...' he began to proclaim, on no basis other than how I spoke. So there you have it: an obsessive self-publicist and casual maker of racist assumptions, even then, over 20 years ago."

From The Guardian Diary.
Note to younger readers: David Starkey was once "Chairman" of TORCHE, the Tory Campaign For Homosexuality Equality.
Though seeing as Starkey was unpersecuted, clearly he thought equality had been achieved some time before.
At the time of the above interview it was called Conservative Group For Homosexuality Equality.
They are now LGBTory - and they're still cunts.

Update: David Starkravingmad keeps right on digging in an unthink-piece in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday.

David Starkey: Getting Into Bed With The Enemy

The Christian Institute has got a new BFF!
Hallelujah!
It's David Starkey, of making endless unwatchable TV programmes about the Royal Family fame.
Funny, I bet you're thinking, isn't he an atheist and a gayer and "the rudest man in Britain"?
Yes, but he's just come out very publicly in defence of anti-gay Christians.
''Gay Historian David Starkey Defends Christians', The Christian Institute hosannas on its website.
Mrs Mr Starkey was on Question Time yet again on Thursday, being rude and spitting feathers about this awful modern world.
They got onto discussing those new equality laws that Christian bigots keeping fall foul of.
David Starkey offered a stark warning; “I am gay and I am atheist but I have profound doubts about this case.
"It seems to me that what we are doing is producing a tyrannous new morality that is every bit as oppressive as the old.”
You better get used to these words - you're going to hear them hurled at us endlessly by The Daily Mail et al.
He explained that when he grew up being gay was "very difficult..." [Makes sad face]
"But I am very, very concerned that a new sort of liberal morality is coming in which is as intolerant, is as oppressive, is as intrusive into family life.”
Remember that nice Christian couple that got fined because they discriminated against a gay couple?
David thought that was madness, and made a modest proposal; “It is for them simply to put up what seems to me to be a quite proper notice in a small privately-run hotel which says we are Christians and this is what we believe.
“Otherwise, we are as I said, we're producing a new tyranny,” a line so good he's said it thrice.
"And can I also tell you something else?"
I fear you're going to anyway.
It's not going to be an Andrew Pierce-style "I, as a gay man, hate this gayery", is it David?
"Speaking as somebody who is gay and had a mother who was a Christian and passionately hated and opposed it, the hatred and the opposition made me what I am.
"Being nice and sweet about gays isn't wholly a good thing. It really isn't.
"We live in a world of intense difficulty and plurality, and just having a hand-me-down, reach-me-down, off-the-hanger imposed morality is a very bad idea."
What a silly old sod.
Surprised? You shouldn't be.
David Starkey is a gay Tory, so squaring circles and embracing contradictions come as easy to him as farting.
He used to be chairman of TORCHE, the Conservative Campaign For Homosexual Equality, who despite their name were never really known for campaigning for equality.
A gay Uncle Tom?
David's more of an Aunty Tom.
Getting into bed with the enemy - when the enemy won't let us sleep in the same room.
Praise be!