Michael Duncan Buerk (born 18 February 1946) is a BBC journalist and newsreader, most famous for his reporting of the Ethiopian famine on 23 October 1984, which inspired the Band Aid charity record.

Early life[link]

Buerk was born in Solihull,^[1] and was educated at Solihull School, an Independent school in the West Midlands where he was a member of the Combined Cadet Force and represented the school on the sports field.

Michael Buerk's hopes of a career in the armed forces were dashed when he failed an eyesight test at the selection centre. After a brief spell as a hod carrier^[2] he began his career in journalism with the Bromsgrove Messenger, South Wales Echo (where he shared a house with Sue Lawley in Cardiff), and the Daily Mail, he joined Radio Bristol in 1970 before becoming a reporter for BBC News in 1973.

Reporter and newsreader[link]

He was awarded the Golden Nymph award at the Monte Carlo festival for his reports on the famine from Korem in Ethiopia, first broadcast on 24 October 1984. The footage of the famine was shot by Mohamed Amin. He later said that the broadcast was one of "the most influential pieces of television ever broadcast [prompting] a surge of generosity across the world for Ethiopia[that raised] more than $130 million". Another notable bulletin he is renowned for is being the first news reporter on the BBC News in the 2000s, making the bulletin at 0100 GMT on the 1 January 2000.^[3]

Buerk has worked for

• BBC Points West
• BBC Midlands Today
• BBC Nine O'Clock News (1976 to 2000)

  (Industrial correspondent, 1976–77; Energy/Scotland correspondent 1977-81; Main presenter 1988-2000)

• BBC Ten O'Clock News (2000 to 2003)
• BBC One O'Clock News (1986 to 2003)
• Breakfast
• 999
• The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 (since 1990)
• The Choice (since 1998)
• A Royal Wedding - HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex & Sophie Rhys-Jones (June 1999) - co-presenter with Sue Barker at Windsor.
• Total Eclipse (August 1999) - the main presenter on the historic solar Eclipse in Cornwall on BBC One.
• The One Show (September 2010) (Sit in/cover presenter)

During the 2001 Oscars, Buerk commented live on air that the BBC's arts correspondent Rosie Millard was wearing the 'best supporting dress'.^[4]

On the BBC's Children in Need Buerk has performed several times along with an ensemble of BBC News presenters. In 2004 he dressed in leather to perform Duran Duran classics; in 2005 he sang the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody". He was sometimes imitated by Jon Culshaw on Dead Ringers.

In 1991, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (MA) by the University of Bath.^[5]

Recent work[link]

On 28 July 2007, Buerk appeared on a special celebrity version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with Jennie Bond to raise money for NCH, the children's charity. With a combined effort, they raised £64,000. He is also a supporter of the British Red Cross^[6] and in October 2008 came out in support of an Alternate Reality Game, Traces of Hope, which the charity developed.^[7] In 2010, he narrated Sky1 reality show Pineapple Dance Studios. Buerk has also made five guest appearances on the BBC's The One Show in April and September 2010. He has also appeared as a sit in/cover presenter for Jason Manford on six occasions. On 4 January 2011, Buerk appeared on Celebrity Mastermind and won.

Views[link]

Buerk asserted in a Radio Times interview in August 2005 that the "shift in the balance of power between the sexes" has gone too far and that men are now little more than "sperm donors".^[8] In particular, he objected to the many women now in senior positions within the BBC, echoing the outburst the previous year by sacked former Director General, Alasdair Milne. This was in anticipation of Buerk's 45-minute TV-essay, "Michael Buerk on What Are Men For?" as part of Five's six-part Don't Get Me Started! series, broadcast on Tuesday 23 August 2005. The reaction to "What Are Men For?" was quite severe, criticising in particular Buerk's choices of sympathetic interview subjects, including "an odious chauvinistic farmer" and "a ridiculous Sloane" according to Guardian journalist Sam Wollaston.^[9] Buerk has also criticised contemporary newsreaders for being overpaid Autocue-reading "lame brains".^[10]

Personal life[link]

Buerk lives in Guildford with his wife, with whom he has twin sons. One of his sons, Roland, who is also a BBC journalist, survived the South Asian tsunami on Boxing Day 2004,^[11] and was also in Tokyo when the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Michael Buerk at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Buerk through the years.
• Autobiography.
• The Choice
• The Moral Maze
• British Red Cross profile

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There are many people in history who are commonly appended with the phrase "the Great", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as e Bozorg and e azam in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.^[1]

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus)^[2] assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "the Great".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers[link]

• Abbas I of Persia (1571–1629), Shah of Iran
• Akbar (1542–1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India
• Alain I of Albret (1440–1522), French aristocrat
• Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia
• Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia
• Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias
• Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex
• Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire
• Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty
• Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),
• Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire
• Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand
• Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)
• Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736–1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)
• Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden
• Casimir III the Great (1310–1370), King of Poland
• Catherine the Great (1729–1796), Empress of Russia
• Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India
• Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans
• Chulalongkorn (1853–1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)
• Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks
• Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen
• Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman emperor
• Cyaxares the Great (c. 625-585 BC), third king of Media
• Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire
• Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire
• Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse^[3]
• Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile
• Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia
• Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire
• Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe
• Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader
• Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea^[4][5]
• Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC
• Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)
• Henry IV of France (1553–1610), King of France and King of Navarre
• Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea
• Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris
• Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France
• Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057–1101)
• Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat
• Ivan III of Russia (1440–1505), Tsar of Russia
• John I of Portugal (1358–1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve
• John II of Aragon (1398–1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre
• Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor
• Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i
• Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India
• Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010–1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia
• Kublai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty
• Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales
• Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland
• Mangrai the Great (1238–1317), Lanna, northern Thailand
• Emperor Meiji (1852–1912), Emperor of Japan
• Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)
• Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)
• Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom
• Mstislav I of Kiev (1076–1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus
• Naresuan (1555–1605), King of Ayutthaya
• Narai (1633–1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)
• Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine
• Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)
• K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque
• Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka
• Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia
• Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia
• Peter III of Aragon (1239–1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily
• Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar
• Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar
• Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.^[6][7][8]
• Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–1044), Tamil King of India
• Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt
• Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)
• Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082–1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties
• Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)
• Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev
• Saladin (c. 1138-1193), Kurdish Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and victor over the Crusaders
• Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre
• Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire
• Sejong the Great (1397–1450), Korean king^[9]
• Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia
• Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire
• Stephen III of Moldavia (1433–1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)
• Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks
• Taksin (1734–1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)
• Tamar (1160-1123), Queen of the Georgian Empire
• Timur (1336–1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty
• Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie
• Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire
• Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor
• Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia
• Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia
• Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire
• Valdemar I of Denmark (1131–1182), King of Denmark
• Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor
• Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus
• Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy
• William I, Count of Burgundy (1020–1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon
• William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou
• Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)
• Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures[link]

• Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East
• Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia
• Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian
• Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt
• Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader
• Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)
• Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint
• Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint
• Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)
• Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine
• Pope John Paul II (1920–2005)
• Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)
• Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit
• Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)
• Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople
• William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other[link]

• Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies
• Emmy the Great, folk singer
• Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III
• Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also[link]

• Epithet
• List of monarchs by nickname
• List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I
• James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus
• Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whose common honorific "Mahatma" means "Great Soul"

Notes[link]

David Starkey
David Starkey in the early 1980s, while teaching at the London School of Economics.
Born	David Starkey (1945-01-03) 3 January 1945 (age 67) Kendal, Westmorland, England
Occupation	Historian, television personality
Language	English
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Partner(s)	James Brown

David Starkey, CBE, FSA (born 3 January 1945) is a British constitutional historian, and a radio and television presenter.

He was born the only child of Quaker parents, and attended Kendal Grammar School before entering Cambridge through 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 taught history until 1998.

Starkey is a well known radio and television personality, first appearing on the latter 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";^[1] his frequent appearances on Question Time have been received with criticism and applause. Starkey has presented several history documentaries. In 2002 he signed a £2 million contract with Channel 4 for 25 hours of programming. Recently, he was a contributor on the Channel 4 series, Jamie's Dream School. An accomplished author, Starkey has written several books on the Tudors.

He was appointed CBE in 2007, is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and an ardent supporter of equality between heterosexuals and homosexuals. He is openly gay and lives with his long-time partner in the south of England.

Early years and education[link]

David Starkey was born on 3 January 1945 in Kendal.^[2] 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. Robert, the son of a cotton spinner, was a foreman in a washing-machine factory, while Elsie followed in her father's footsteps and became a cotton weaver, and later a cleaner.^[3][4] 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.^[3] "She was a wonderful but also very frightening parent. Finally, she was a Pygmalion. She wanted a creature, she wanted something she had made."^[1] Her dominance contrasted sharply to his father, who was "poetic, reflective, rather solitary. The classic weak father, if you like. He wasn't a weak man, but as a father he was weak."^[1] Their relationship was "distant", but improved after his mother's death in 1977.^[1]

Starkey was born with two club feet. One was fixed early, while the other had to be operated on several times.^[5] He also suffered from polio.^[6] He suffered a nervous breakdown aged 13, and was taken by his mother to a boarding house in Southport, where he spent several months recovering.^[6] Starkey blamed the episode on the unfamiliar experience of being in a "highly competitive environment".^[5]

He excelled during his time at Kendal Grammar School, winning debating prizes and appearing in school plays.^[8][9] Although he showed an early inclination toward science, he chose instead to study history.^[7] A scholarship enabled his entry into Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge,^[10] where he gained a first, a PhD and a Fellowship.^[3] Starkey was fascinated by King Henry VIII, and his thesis centred around the Tudor monarch's inner household. His doctoral supervisor was Professor Geoffrey Elton, an expert in Tudor studies. 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. The professor 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."^[10]

Career[link]

Bored at Cambridge^[5] and attracted to London's gay scene, in 1972 Starkey moved to the London School of Economics.^[3] He claimed to be an "excessively enthusiastic advocate of promiscuity",^[9] liberating himself from his mother's intensity; she strongly disapproved of his homosexuality.^[1][9] A 30-year career as a teacher ended in 1998, when, blaming boredom and modern academic life, he gave it up.^[5]

Starkey entered the wider public consciousness in 1992 on the BBC Radio 4 debate programme The Moral Maze,^[8] where he debated morality with fellow panellists Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Dr Roger Scruton and journalist Janet Daley. 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."^[9] The Daily Mail gave him the sobriquet of "the rudest man in Britain", although Starkey claims that his character was part of a "convenient image".^[1] He once attacked the Archdeacon of York George Austin over "his fatness, his smugness, and his pomposity",^[5] 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.^[3][5][9] 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."^[11]

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.^[5] He was a prosecution witness in the 1984 ITV programme The Trial of Richard III,^[12] whose jury acquitted the king on the grounds of insufficient evidence.^[13] His television documentaries on The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were ratings successes.^[8] 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 the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms onward.^[5][8] He presented the 2009 series Henry: Mind of a Tyrant, which Independent reviewer Brian Viner called "highly fascinating",^[14] although AA Gill was less complimentary, calling it "Hello! history", and its presenter "a top-down historian, a nostalgic snob of the sort that collects souvenir egg cups".^[15] In an interview about the series for the Radio Times, Starkey complained that too many historians had focussed not on Henry, but 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."^[16] This prompted historian Lucy Worsley to label his comments as misogynistic.^[17] More recently, he taught five history lessons in Channel 4's Jamie's Dream School,^[18] after which he criticised the state education system.^[19]

The core of history is narrative and biography. And the way history has been presented in the curriculum for the last 25 years is very different. The importance of knowledge has been downgraded. Instead the argument has been that it's all about skills. Supposedly, what you are trying to do with children is inculcate them with the analytical skills of the historian. Now this seems to me to be the most goddamn awful way to approach any subject, and also the most dangerous, and one, of course, that panders to all sorts of easy assumptions - ‘oh we've got the internet, we don't need knowledge anymore because it's so easy to look things up'. Oh no it isn't. In order to think, you actually need the information in your mind.

—David Starkey^[7]

He presented the 2011 documentary William and Kate: Romance and the Royals, about which The Independent reviewer Amol Rajan was equivocal,^[20] although the Telegraph's Benji Wilson claimed he could tell that Starkey "felt that there was something a little tacky about the whole enterprise".^[21]

Starkey was in 1994 elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.^[22] He has worked as curator on several exhibitions, including a 2003 exhibit 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. "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."^[23] His remarks were criticised by royal biographer Penny Junor and royal historian Robert Lacey.^[24]

Politics[link]

By his own admission, Starkey 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".^[25] "I suppose my politics remained essentially in the middle-of the-road Labour left until the end of the 1970s".^[25] Starkey blames the Callaghan administration for "blow[ing] the nation's finances".^[25] He bemoaned the Tories when they were 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."^[26] 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."^[7] Starkey prefers radical changes to the UK's constitution in line with the federal system used by the USA, although in an interview with Iain Dale he expressed his support for the monarchy, the queen, and Prince Charles.^[7] 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.^[27]

A supporter of the Tory campaign for homosexual equality (Torche),^{[nb 1][29]} during one of many appearances on the BBC's Question Time he attacked Jeffrey Archer over his views on the age of homosexual consent.^[30] 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".^[31][32]

It was a joke! The question was did I think the English should treat St George's Day the same way the Scots and all the rest of them treat their saints' days - St Andrew, St Patrick and my answer was no. That would mean we would become a feeble little nation like them and we're showing every sign of doing just that. H.G. Wells has this wonderful phrase - "the English are the only nation without national dress". It is a glory that we don't have such a thing.

—David Starkey^[7]

More recently, he described Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond as a "Caledonian Hitler" who thinks that "the English, like the Jews, are everywhere".^[33] Appearing on Any Questions? in 2010, he told Labour politician Caroline Flint she had "prattled on".^[34] His comments in August 2011 on the BBC's Newsnight programme, made during a discussion about the 2011 England riots, precipitated support and condemnation from several notable commentators. Starkey claimed that "the whites have become black", and that "a particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion".^[35] Labour leader Ed Miliband called his comments "racist, frankly",^[35] although author Toby Young, blogging in the Telegraph, rejected such criticism, claiming that Starkey was talking not about black culture in general, but "a 'particular form' of black culture".^[36] Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Starkey argued his views had been distorted, that he referred only to a "particular sort" of 'Black' culture, and that "black educationalists" Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh supported the substance of his Newsnight comments.^{[nb 2][37]} The broadcast regulator Ofcom said that Starkey's comments were part of "a serious and measured discussion", and took no action.^[38] More recently, during the 2011 Conservative Party Conference, he spoke at a fringe meeting, declaring London Mayor Boris Johnson as a "jester-despot", and 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".^[39]

Personal life[link]

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.^[9] Starkey was appointed CBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list, for services to history.^[40] He is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society^[41] and a visiting professor of the University of Kent.^[42]

Work[link]

Books

• This Land of England (1985) (with David Souden)
• The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (1986)
• Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration (1986) (Editor with Christopher Coleman)
• The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (1987)
• Rivals in Power: the Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties (1990)
• Henry VIII: A European Court in England (1991)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: The Transcript, Volume 1 (1998) (with Philip Ward and Alistair Hawkyard)
• Elizabeth: Apprenticeship (2000) (published in North America as Elizabeth: The struggle for the throne)
• The Stuart Courts - Foreword (2000) (Edited by Eveline Cruickshanks)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: Essays and Illustrations, Volume 2, (2002) (with Philip Ward and Alistair Hawkyard)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: Essays and Illustrations, Volume 3, (2002) (with Philip Ward and Alistair Hawkyard)
• The Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (2003)
• Elizabeth I: The Exhibition Catalogue (2003)
• The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives - Introduction and Preface (2004) (James P. Carley)
• The Monarchy of England: The Beginnings (2004)
• Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity (2006)
• Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007 - Introduction (2007) (Edited by Sarah McCarthy, Bernard Nurse, and David Gaimster)
• Henry: Virtuous Prince (2008)
• Introduction to Henry VIII; Man & Monarch (Susan Doran, ed. published by the British Library, 2009)
• Crown and Country (Harper Press, 2010) (A compilation of The Monarchy of England: The Beginnings, Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity and some new material)
• Introduction to Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 - England's Most Brutal Battle by George Goodwin (2011)

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)
• The Tudors (2007–2010) technical advisor
• Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant (2009)
• Kate and William: Romance and the Royals (2011)

Applications

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

References[link]

Footnotes

Notes

Further reading[link]

• Billen, Andrew (20 September 2007), The lure of David Starkey, entertainment.timesonline.co.uk, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article2490155.ece, retrieved 28 September 2007 

External links[link]

• David Starkey at the Internet Movie Database

Janet Vera Street-Porter
Janet Street-Porter in 2005
Born	Janet VEra Ardern (1946-12-27) 27 December 1946 (age 65) Brentford, Middlesex, England
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	White British
Occupation	Editor
Notable credit(s)	Editor of The Independent on Sunday Contestant on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
Spouse	Tim Street Porter (m. 1967–1975, divorced) Tony Elliott (m. 1975–1977, divorced) Frank Cvitanovich (m. 1979–1981, divorced) David Sorkin (m. ?-?, divorced)
Website
www.janetstreetporter.com

Janet Street-Porter (born Janet Vera Ardern, 27 December 1946 in Brentford, Middlesex) is a British media personality, journalist and television presenter. She was editor for two years of The Independent on Sunday. She relinquished the job to become editor-at-large in 2002.^[1] Her distinctive London accent and her teeth have been the butt of many comic routines.^[2][3]

Early life[link]

Janet Street-Porter was born Janet Vera Ardern in Brentford, Middlesex, a daughter of Stanley W G Bull, an electrician and Cherry Cuff Ardern (née Jones) a Welsh^[4] school dinner lady. Her mother was still married to her first husband, George Ardern, at the time, and was not to marry Stanley until 1954, hence her name being recorded thus in the birth records. She was later to take her father's surname. She grew up in Fulham and Perivale, West London. Her family, she says, were poor. She went to Lady Margaret School in Parsons Green from 1958 to 1964 and then spent two years at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, where she met her first husband, photographer Tim Street-Porter.^[5]

Early career[link]

She dropped out of college and found media work. After a brief stint at a girls' magazine called Petticoat, she joined the Daily Mail in 1969, where she became the deputy fashion editor.^[6] She became fashion editor of the Evening Standard in 1971.^[5]

When the LBC local radio station began to broadcast in 1973, Street-Porter co-presented a mid-morning show with Fleet Street columnist, Paul Callan.^[7] The intention was sharply to contrast the urbane Callan and the cockney Street-Porter. Their respective accents became known to the station's studio engineers as "cut-glass" and "cut-froat." Friction between the ill-sorted pair involved constant one-upmanship that made for compelling listening, causing, it was claimed, more than one traffic accident.

In early 1975, Street-Porter was launch editor of Sell Out, an off-shoot of the London listings magazine, Time Out, alongside its publisher and her second husband, Tony Elliott. The magazine was not a success.^[8]

Television[link]

Street-Porter went into television at LWT in 1975, first as a reporter on a series of mainly youth-oriented programmes, including The London Weekend Show (1975–79). She went on to present the late-night chat show Saturday Night People (1978–80) with Clive James and Russell Harty. She later produced Twentieth Century Box (1980–82), presented by Danny Baker.^[5]

She was editor of the innovative Channel Four Network 7 show from 1987. The same year the then BBC 2 boss, Alan Yentob, appointed her head of youth and entertainment features. She was responsible for the twice-weekly DEF II and commissioned Rapido, Red Dwarf and Rough Guide.^[9] Her Network 7 show was in 1988 awarded a BAFTA for its graphics.

In 1992, she provided the story for The Vampyr: A Soap Opera, the BBC's adaptation of Heinrich August Marschner's opera Der Vampyr, which featured a new libretto by Charles Hart.

Street-Porter's approach did not endear her to critics, who objected to her diction and questioned her suitability as an influence on Britain's youth.^[9] In her final year at the BBC, she became head of independent commissioning. She left the BBC for Mirror Group Newspapers in 1994 to become joint-managing director with Kelvin MacKenzie^[9] of the ill-fated L!VE TV channel. She left after four months.^[5] In 1996, Street-Porter set up her own production company.

She has appeared on numerous reality TV shows, including Call Me a Cabbie and So You Think You Can Teach. The latter saw her trying to work as a primary school teacher.^[10] She was a contestant in the ITV series I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!. She finished fourth.

Street-Porter conducted numerous interviews with business figures and others for Bloomberg TV.^[10]

Since 1998, Janet has appeared annually on BBC's Question Time. Her most recent appearance was 15 March 2012.

In 2000, Street-Porter was nominated for the "Mae West Award for the Most Outspoken Woman in the Industry" at Carlton Television's Women in Film and Television Awards.^[5]

In 2006, she appeared regularly on chef Gordon Ramsay's The F-Word, where she was the "field correspondent." In this capacity, it was her job to locate outlandish or unusual food such as crocodile and then tempt diners to have a taste. In the third series of the show she caused controversy when she attempted to serve up horse meat at Cheltenham Racecourse. She was thwarted by the police, who described the stunt as highly provocative, and she had to dish the meat out elsewhere. Ramsay himself became the target of animal rights protesters, who dumped a ton of horse manure outside his restaurant at Claridge's.^[11]

In 2007, Street-Porter starred in an ITV2 reality show called Deadline. She served as a tough-talking editor who worked with a team of celebrity "reporters" whose job it was to produce a weekly gossip magazine. The celebrities in question had to endure the Street-Porter tongue as she decided each week which of them to fire.^[12]

In 2007, Street-Porter took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about her Welsh family history.

In 2008, Street-Porter was host of Celebrity Big Brother Hijack.

Her distinctive voice has made her a favourite of TV and radio impersonators.

In 2011, Janet joined a long list of panellists on ITVs flagship show Loose Women.

Newspaper work[link]

Street-Porter became editor of the Independent on Sunday in 1999. Despite derision from her critics, she took the paper's circulation up to 270,460, an increase of 11.6 per cent.^[5] In 2002 she became editor-at-large, writing a regular column.

She has written for numerous newspapers and magazines.

Controversy[link]

Following the death of Ian Tomlinson, Street-Porter dedicated her editor-at-large column in the Independent on Sunday to painting a picture of Tomlinson as a "troubled man with quite a few problems":

"Knowing that he was an alcoholic is critical to understanding his sense of disorientation and his attitude towards the police, which might on first viewing of the video footage, seem a bit stroppy."^[13]

Street-Porter has also attracted criticism over an article on depression in the Daily Mail in May 2010, in which she said, "Depression? It's just the new trendy illness!"^[14] People have criticised the article for being condescending to those who suffer from depression and belittling the issue.^[15][16]

Other activities[link]

Street-Porter was president of the Ramblers' Association for two years from 1994. She walked across Britain from Dungeness in Kent to Conway in Wales for the series Coast to Coast in 1998.^[5] She also walked from Edinburgh to London in a straight line in 1998, for a television series and her book, As the Crow Flies.^[17]

The Clerkenwell house commissioned by Janet Street-Porter

In 1994, for the documentary series The Longest Walk, she accompanied long-distance walker Ffyona Campbell on the last section of her round-the-world walk.

In 1987, Street-Porter commissioned a house from CZWG Architects. The building, its exterior a postmodernist mini-echo, conscious or not, of Broadcasting House, stands out among Clerkenwell's mainly Georgian houses.

In 1966, Street-Porter appeared as an extra in the nightclub scene in Blowup. In 2003, she wrote and presented a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival titled All the Rage.^[1] She published the autobiographical Baggage in 2004, about her childhood in working class London. Its sequel is titled Fallout.^[1] Life's Too F***ing Short is a volume which presents, as she puts it, her answer to "getting what you want out of life by the most direct route."

Personal life[link]

Street-Porter has been married four times. Her first marriage, in 1967 to photographer Tim Street-Porter,^[5] ended in 1974 after her relationships with Doug Hayward and then Tony Elliott, whom she married in 1977. She later married Canadian film-maker Frank Cvitanovich, and then David Sorkin. She is now in a relationship with restaurateur Peter Spanton.

A friend of the model Elizabeth Hurley, Street-Porter danced with Hurley and six others at Indian-style celebrations the night before Hurley's marriage to Arun Nayar in 2007.^[18]

She lives between Nidderdale, North Yorkshire,^[19] Kent and London.^[20]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Janet Street-Porter at the Internet Movie Database
• Janet Street-Porter at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Official website
• Janet Street-Porter's personal Myspace profile
• Desert Island Discs episode, BBC Radio 4, November 2008
• Janet Street-Porter 2008 Interview

Mark Steele may refer to:

• Mark Steele (politician), South African member of Parliament
• Mark Steele (cricketer) (born 1976), former English cricketer

See also[link]

• Mark Steel, British comedian and left-wing commentator

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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