Starkey on Today

David Starkey is becoming something of a regular on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. On the edition edited by the thriller writer and all round good egg P.D. James he talked eloquently (and courteously, tamed by the grand dame) on English national identity, musing on whether the English now inhabited a ‘post-nation’. Today he mused on the Staffordshire Hoard and the continuing camoaign to raise funds for a permanent home for the collection in the West Midlands. He thought it important that it should remain in the old kingdom of Mercia, as it was a symbol of the origins of ‘Angle-land’, and threw light on issues of Englishness that needed to be considered and embraced. The English, after all, have as much right as anyone else to muse on the nature of their identity, reluctant though they seem to be to celebrate it too loudly. The significance of the Hoard is hard to overestimate.

Listen to the Starkey segment of the programme by clicking here.