 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". "I suppose my politics remained essentially in the middle-of-the-road Labour left until the end of the 1970s". Starkey blames the Callaghan administration for "blow [ing] the nation's finances". During the 1980s he was an active Conservative Party member, and he was a Conservative candidate for Islington Borough Council in 1986 in Tollington ward, and in 1990 in Hillrise ward.
