University Challenge host Amol Rajan has said he is “very worried” about England, admitting he has felt unsure whether it is the right place to bring up his four children.
The journalist and broadcaster was born in Calcutta, India, and came to England with his family when he was three years old. He shares four kids with his wife, Charlotte Faircloth, an associate professor at University College London.
In an appearance on Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast, the 42-year-old compared England to his country of birth, saying India is “extraordinarily exciting and energetic in a way that Britain doesn’t always feel”.
“I can’t tell you how much I love my country, by which I mean England, but I’m very worried about it,” he explained. “I think we’ve got some big, big problems that need addressing, and one of the things is whether this is the best place for my four kids to grow up.
“My answer is that it is. But I would say specifically that I’m not sure where it’s still a place where history is being made.”
Rajan and Faircloth married in 2013 and their youngest daughter is two years old. The former Radio 4 host added that “when she’s a bit older and the long-haul flights are a bit less perilous”, he would like to visit India more frequently and take his kids “to fall in love with the civilisation that’s in their blood”.
“I’d like my children to experience India and then make up their own mind,” he said. “I want it to be their decision.”
The comments come months after Rajan announced his exit from Radio 4’s Today programme amid plans to launch his own production company.
He said in January: “Twenty years after I first flirted with the idea, I'm extremely excited to jump into the Great Digital Narnia of the Creator Economy, and build my own company. I'll still do Britain's oldest TV quiz and most exciting podcast.
"But Del Boy was my hero growing up, and it's time to unleash my inner entrepreneur."
The BBC confirmed he would continue to present University Challenge and the Radical podcast.
"I am very much not leaving the BBC, Britain's noblest cultural institution, whose Reithian spirit is such a generous gift to a world in flux,” Rajan continued. “It's that world I'm heading for, and I'm excited."
Prior to joining the BBC as its first media editor in 2016, Rajan enjoyed a celebrated career on Fleet Street, becoming the youngest editor of a broadsheet title when he took the helm at The Independent at the age of 29 in 2013.
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