#095 - David Starkey - Why Britain is Broken and How We Recover Liberty

Mr Obnoxious

Peter McCormack

Technology, News, Politics, Money, Investing, Finance, Bitcoin

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Historian David Starkey returns to The Peter McCormack Show for a blistering historical analysis of why modern Britain is broken. Starkey unleashes on the 'neophilia' of the Blair years, the catastrophe of incorporating universal human rights into English law, and the failure of modern conservatism to defend the nation's unique heritage.

Drawing a line from the French Revolution to today, he contrasts the organic, bottom-up wisdom of English individualism with the top-down, bureaucratic model of continental Europe. This is a lesson in the ideas that underpin true liberty, the importance of historical continuity, and the urgent need to recover the values that once made Britain exceptional.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Look at the record of the old aristocracy and compare it with the new NEPO babies of labour.
0:08.0	And look at the difference because what did aristocracy do?
0:12.0	Yeah, I know there were lots of fools, there were lots of people who gambled their heritances away.
0:17.0	But look at those who didn't.
0:20.0	Look at those who were committed. The simple fact
0:23.6	of laying out a great avenue of trees. You will not see it. Your son will see it halfway
0:32.6	there, but it's only your grandson who will. That extraordinary sense of longevity.
0:39.9	There's a gigantic task of public education.
0:43.7	That wonderful biblical phrase,
0:45.8	people are hungry.
0:47.5	They need feeding.
0:49.1	Man does not live by bread alone.
0:51.1	He doesn't just live by two peon or two p off income tax. There are ideas.
0:56.0	There are values. If you don't teach good values, people absorb bad ones. It's as simple as that. You know, you know All right. Good see you, David.
1:47.5	Hello.
1:48.5	Hello. Last time I...
1:49.5	Again, yeah. Last time I saw you recommended two books to me.
1:53.0	The origins of English individualism and reflections on the revolutions in France.
2:00.0	And it's Bastide.
2:02.5	Okay.
2:03.4	Well, I think I know why you recommended these two.
2:09.0	But I have to be honest about how I read them, because I was on holiday and I started with reflections on the revolution in France, and it's a hard read.
	...

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