Dr David Starkey is a historian and broadcaster. Developing an interest in the past through grammar school and a scholarship to Cambridge and a lecturer in Tudor history at LSE for nearly 30 years, his trenchant opinions and unforgiving style quickly caught the eye of broadcasters and journalists. His popular television documentaries include ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ and ‘Monarchy’, and his appearances on Radio 4's ‘The Moral Maze’ earned him the reputation as “the rudest man in Britain”. In this in-depth interview, he argues that the rise of historical programmes has done nothing to reverse the decline in academic standards, discusses how his uncompromising nature has taken him through his career, and reveals how a passion for tradition means he is a staunch Conservative – despite his working class roots.