When Nick Robinson takes to the airwaves for the first time as a Today programme presenter on Monday, he will do well to keep his emotions in check. Not because months ago he feared he might never broadcast again. Nor because he now holds the role he has long coveted.
Friends of Robinson said he had a “deep personal connection” to the programme that can be traced back more than 30 years, when he was involved in a head-on car crash that killed his friends James Nelson and Will Redhead, son of former Radio 4 Today presenter Brian Redhead.
Robinson became close to Brian Redhead after the crash, applying for his first job in journalism as a result of his encouragement while still recovering from his injuries. He stayed close to the family, and credits the long-serving Today presenter, who died in 1994, with inspiring his love of radio and encouraging him to pursue a career in the media.
In the BBC announcement of his appointment in July, Robinson paid tribute to his childhood inspiration: “Brian relished the opportunity to ‘drop a word in the nation’s ear’. I’m delighted that all these years later I am being given the chance to sit in what was his chair.”
It will be a poignant moment for Robinson, 51, and one not lost on his close friends. “If anyone’s ever been destined to do the Today programme, it is Nick,” said Roger Mosey, the former BBC executive who gave Robinson his first radio show in 1996.
Having spent a decade as the BBC’s political editor, Robinson is swapping his perch outside Downing Street for the BBC Radio 4 studio. Approximately 7 million listeners will hear him go into battle at dawn, replacing James Naughtie, who is embarking on a new career as the station’s special correspondent.
It is not the thought of messing up that is keeping Robinson up at night, rather it’s the early starts. He has commandeered his son’s bedroom – the quietest room in his house in north London – to get a better night’s sleep, buying a daylight alarm clock (which imitates a sunrise), set for 3am just to be sure. Giving up caffeine after the first morning coffee has been easier than expected, he has told friends, but “wine is proving a bit more tricky”.
Whatever the early nerves, his appointment marks a remarkable comeback for a man who only eight months ago had surgery to remove a lung tumour. He woke up from the operation and found he was unable to speak, fearing he would never broadcast again. Months later, he appeared live on the BBC News at 10 on the eve of the general election just 90 minutes after leaving hospital.
“I had lunch with him a couple of weeks ago. The voice was a bit different, obviously, as anybody can tell, but not in any sense that made you feel ‘Oh God – it’s going to be a problem, this,’ ” said John Humphrys, 72, the longest-serving Today presenter. “He was the same Nick as I’ve known for 20 years. I think he’s coped with the illness amazingly, because I know how horrible it was. I’d be amazed if it affected him.”
Born in a leafy Cheshire village in 1963, Robinson’s mother is a German-Jewish refugee whose parents fled the Nazis in 1933. His father was a sales director, the son of an English army officer. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University, where he was chairman of the Oxford University Conservative Association.
His broadcasting career started on Piccadilly radio in Manchester. He then joined the BBC in 1986 as a production trainee on Brass Tacks, This Week and Crimewatch. By 1993, he had been appointed deputy editor of Panorama – where he met Humphrys. “It was blindingly obvious he was a highly intelligent bloke with a lot of enthusiasm for what he was doing and obviously he was going to go do very well for himself, as indeed he did,” Humphrys said.
It was not long before Robinson attracted the admiration of BBC top brass. Roger Mosey, then BBC 5Live controller, gave him a presenting role on Late Night Live where the “ladsy” young hack combined “sports banter and also knowing what he was talking about in politics and current affairs”, Mosey said.
He covered his first general election in 2001 as political correspondent for the BBC News Channel – then BBC News 24 – pioneering an online election “weblog”. He was lured to ITN as political editor in 2002. Even then, Mosey recalls, Robinson had his eye on the Today presenter gig. The former BBC executive, now master of Selwyn College at Cambridge University, remembered asking Robinson about his career: “We had a bit of a discussion about what would keep [him] at the BBC, and what would have kept him at the BBC was presenting a daily programme like Today or Wato [Radio 4’s The World at One].”
To viewers, Robinson has been at the heart of British politics for what seems like an age. But he still considers himself an outsider, shunning Sunday lunches with senior politicians in favour of weekends with his wife, Pippa, and their three children, Alice, Will and Harry. A lifelong Manchester United fan, he lives round the corner from Arsenal’s Emirates stadium and has a season ticket for the Gooners (though only goes to two or three games a season). Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s never been to a game with his great BBC rival Robert Peston, a big Arsenal fan.
Peston, the BBC’s flamboyant economics editor, is moving to ITV in the new year to become political editor and front a new Sunday morning talk show. The two heavyweights often clashed over whose story got top billing on the BBC’s flagship bulletin: Robinson last year said “we’re not mates” when asked about his colleague/competitor.
But speaking to the Guardian this week, Peston said their rivalry was a “thoroughly healthy one” that was good for the BBC. He added: “I don’t think it’s a bad or strange thing. All it was was the kind of rivalry any news organisation would want, whether you’re a broadcaster or newspaper.
“You want journalists who want to produce the stories that, in a newspaper, splash the paper, or in a news broadcaster lead the 10[pm bulletin]. I’ve always viewed it as thoroughly healthly – we were both basically pushing our stories hard and trying to get the best stories we possibly could.”
Peston said he was touched when Robinson thanked him in his diaries, Election Notebook, published this year, for offering support during his illness. But what does Peston think of Robinson as a journalist? “I admire Nick greatly. I think he’s the model of what a political editor should be. Inevitably, because all news organisations are gossipy places – inevitably sometimes what I regard as a completely healthy rivalry may well have been misinterpreted. But genuinely we get on very well.”
When told Robinson had an Arsenal season ticket, despite being a Manchester United fan, Peston added: “Fucking weird. Other than that particular deficiency on his part, we love each other.”
Robinson’s lobby colleagues said he had an “unbelievable ability to take comprehensive issues and put a bullet through them”, summarising “WDIAM?” – what does it all mean? – in less than a minute. He calls it his “mum test”, friends say: “Is it understandable to his mother? It mustn’t be wordy or ‘anoraky’.”
Last year, the impartiality of his Scottish referendum coverage was called into question by yes campaign supporters, who protested outside BBC Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow to call for his resignation. In August, Robinson reignited the row when he likened the protests to scenes in Putin’s Russia, prompting Alex Salmond to say the journalist should be “embarrassed and ashamed” of his broadcasts.
Listeners should expect fireworks, then, the next time Salmond appears on the breakfast show. Jamie Angus, editor of the Today programme, said: “You’d be quite surprised if the BBC’s political editor didn’t get into the odd row that went beyond 24, 48 hours. I’m not sure it has a lasting significance for Alex Salmond or anybody else.”
Like those close to Robinson, Angus knew of his deep personal connection to the programme and Redhead. He said: “For personal reasons as much as professional reasons, he’s always wanted to do the programme. I thought, weirdly, you know what – that counts for a lot with me. I want people who really love the programme, they don’t just want to do it professionally.”
Potted profile
Born 5 October 1963.
Career 1986 production trainee, BBC 1993 deputy editor, Panorama 1996 political correspondent, BBC, presenter Weekend Breakfast and Late Night Live, Radio 5 Live 1999 chief political correspondent, BBC News 24 2002 political editor, ITN 2005 political editor, BBC 2015 presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
High point Covering two general elections as BBC political editor.
Low point Spat with Alex Salmond over the BBC’s Scottish referendum campaign, prompting a march on the BBC Scotland headquarters.
He says: “I’m not one of the world’s holiday takers after 15 years as a news junkie and a workaholic. I’m getting used to not waking bolt upright at 6.30 listening to the key news bulletins and checking Twitter front pages. It has been a really odd experience … it’s difficult to adjust to because the body and brain is just programmed to do that.”
They say: “He was really easy to deal with and that is not always true of presenters, all of whom have their moments as they get older and grander. The fact is he calls breaking news very well indeed. He’s always available, always ready to go, and he’s very sure in his judgment. Whereas with some people you think ‘Oh my God, what are they gonna say next?’” – Roger Mosey, former BBC head of television news.
