Jerome Starkey

Jerome is journalist, author and broadcaster based in the UK. He has spent most of his career covering wars and the environment. He is currently Defence Editor at The Sun. This website is an archive of old stories spanning most of the last decade.

[jeromestarkey]

Nelson Mandela exhibition: ‘This is Black Lives Matter, from a lifetime ago’

Were it not for the panes of glass in the gallery floor, visitors to Mandela: The Official Exhibition could be excused for trying to wipe their feet when they reach the prison bedrolls. The coarse...

[jeromestarkey]

Sisters go to war over fate of family estate’s dead pheasants

As she marched across her country estate clutching a loudhailer, Tacky MacGregor had a surprising message for her older sister’s guests, who were taking potshots at pheasants. “Came Shoot burns...

[jeromestarkey]

Shooting lobby snubs bid to save birds of prey

Britain’s biggest bird-shooting organisations have boycotted a group set up to save endangered birds of prey. Five organisations representing Britain’s biggest shooting estates stunned...

[jeromestarkey]

Super-rich pay £50,000 for weekend’s shooting

When the Chinese shooting party arrived on Exmoor in white snow suits, designer jeans and baseball caps, the gamekeepers knew they would have their work cut out for them. The party were novices who...

[jeromestarkey]

All my birds will be eaten, vows shoot owner

The owner of a 700-acre estate in Norfolk plans to make it a condition of future pheasant shoots that the birds go into the food chain. Vaughan Smith, who owns the Ellingham estate in Norfolk, said...

[jeromestarkey]

Ten big shoots kill more birds than 3,000 smallest

The country’s ten biggest game shoots released 1.4 million birds for shooting last year — more than the smallest 3,000 shoots combined, analysis by The Times has found. Figures from the Department...

[jeromestarkey]

A video showing dozens of dead pheasants being dumped in a pit by a digger has revealed a dark side to Britain’s multimillion-pound bird-shooting business. Footage taken by animal welfare activists...

[jeromestarkey]

An off-duty British special forces soldier ran into a hotel compound being attacked by terrorists in Nairobi, where he stormed buildings and dragged civilians to safety. The man, who is understood...

[jeromestarkey]

The Times view on the changing face of game hunting: Pheasants’ Revolt

Game hunting is to many traditional country-dwellers a form of intimacy with nature. Properly conducted, the shooting of game birds, in particular pheasants, grouse and wildfowl, is not an act of...

[jeromestarkey]

A British special forces soldier ran into the middle of a terror attack in Nairobi yesterday to help civilians. The senior NCO, who is understood to have been “long-serving member” of the SAS, was...

[jeromestarkey]

Mild winter is magic for mushrooms

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness has been especially mellow this year. And a little bit groovy, too. Fungi experts have said that an unusually mild late autumn and early winter may have...

[jeromestarkey]

Time running out to save lost walks

When Chris Smith first read about Virginia Woolf’s favourite walk something struck him as odd. According to her diaries, the writer would leave Monk’s House, which she shared with her husband...

[jeromestarkey]

Terrorists stormed a five-star hotel in Nairobi today, killing at least five people, injuring eight others and prompting fears of a siege. Police said armed men were “holing up” inside the Dusit D2...

[jeromestarkey]

End of Japan’s beef ban fails to reassure anxious farmers

Japan is to lift a ban on British beef and lamb that has stood since the height of the mad cow crisis in the 1990s. The deal is worth an estimated £25 million a year to British farmers but has...

[jeromestarkey]

Members of a foxhunt have been secretly filmed by animal rights activists apparently dragging a fox out from underground to be hunted by hounds. The footage, shot on New Year’s Day, shows members...

[jeromestarkey]

Tax meat to curb climate change, says Green MP Caroline Lucas

Calls by the Green MP Caroline Lucas for a tax on meat have been met with disdain by the food industry. Ms Lucas used a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference to call for “serious consideration of...

[jeromestarkey]

Rare cows the future for farming

Once prized across Britain for their meat and milk, only 170 Albion cows are still alive. But they could soon become a more familiar sight as farmers seek tougher, tastier and more environmentally...