When the nation woke up to the result of the EU referendum, it was Good Morning Britain presenter Susanna Reid who asked the question of Nigel Farage that millions wanted answering – was the leave faction going to stick to its campaign promises, specifically about the £350m in supposed savings that it was claimed would go to the health service? “Can you guarantee that’s going to go to the NHS?” she asked. “No I can’t and I would never have made that claim,” responded Farage.
His response stunned many. Including some of those who, as Reid pointed out, might have voted leave because of the official campaign’s controversial ads making the claim, which Farage, who was affiliated to the other out campaign, Leave.EU, told her he thought had been a “mistake”.
Sitting on the GMB sofa at ITV’s London HQ, she says the question had been on her mind since she’d asked Boris Johnson about it during the campaign. “You are in a situation where leave has won and millions are thinking, ‘Brilliant what do we get for our vote?’; 17 million people want to know about the things they have voted for and whether they are going to be delivered.
“Clearly he [Farage] was enjoying the moment. He admitted he’d had a couple of pints as you would expect. He had every reason to celebrate. That’s when you have a responsibility as a journalist, to keep going. What else, I asked, would voters discover wasn’t going to happen after they’d voted? And we still don’t know the answer to that question.”
Analysing what Farage’s response meant to viewers, Reid says: “It seemed to touch a nerve. It was an honest answer from someone on that side and it seemed to go to the heart of what we think about politics and campaigning.”
Reid, who studied politics, philosophy and law at university, was accused by one Twitter user of being a “typical remain-voting little rich girl”. She responded succinctly: “Journalists have a duty to test politicians. Voters have a right to demand facts. Tweeters entitled to express opinions. Democracy at work.”
Journalists have a duty to test politicians. Voters have a right to demand facts. Tweeters entitled to express opinions. Democracy at work.
— Susanna Reid (@susannareid100) June 25, 2016
She says now: “The irony is Piers [Morgan] declared which way he voted,” whereas she has not. “I’m absolutely scrupulously neutral and fair and equally inquisitive and investigative when it comes to the claims of all politicians.”
Did she expect the response on social media? “Entirely … I have no objection to people criticising me… If you do a big interview that makes waves you’re going to have people who question your questioning and I entirely accept that.”
Twitter is “not there for you just to be flattered”, she points out: “So I will take on board and entirely roll with legitimate criticism or even hurtful criticism. If people are offensive or use language I think is out of place, or if people are personally insulting, of course I’ve got the option of muting or blocking them.”
Although Reid was in the public eye on BBC Breakfast after her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, she found herself firmly in the spotlight as part of the line-up that launched GMB in April 2014 in the wake of the failed Daybreak.
At first GMB stuttered, launching with four presenters around a desk and 794,000 viewers. But since moving back to the traditional GMTV-style sofa chats, and recruiting Morgan last November to co-host Monday to Wednesday, ratings are up. According to ITV, viewing figures for the last 12 months increased 7% on the previous year and Friday’s referendum programme averaged 1.2 million viewers – an 18% audience share.
Her switch from the BBC to ITV was “an interesting experience”, she laughs. The opportunity to create a show “down the road from my family” (she was previously commuting to BBC Breakfast’s Salford home) was “an obvious yes … I’d have been a fool to say no.”
Of the accompanying headlines about the reported rise in salary she received for moving she will only say: “It’s not something that comes up with viewers. Are these questions that go to men? I wouldn’t talk about money.” As Reid has covered everything from the Oscars to the Paris terror attacks, you sense her understandable frustration about “reductionist” stories about her appearance or accusations she flirted with David Cameron when she interviewed him, rather than her journalism.
On the morning we meet, GMB had had someone from Everyday Sexism on to discuss why women are still scrutinised on what they wear and Reid says: “I don’t think we’ve got to the bottom of it frankly. One of our purposes on television is to look presentable as presenters, would it be enough to wear a smart trouser suit every day? I just don’t know.”
She adds: “I’m glad that in the last week we’ve had so much attention for the interviews. I’m glad people love our banter but I like it when papers pick up on the agenda-setting interviews.”
Breakfast television’s fast pace is not easy, moving from light to shade, and Reid says: “I hope people know and viewers love the fact that we can switch from constitutional crisis to Billy Ocean at a moment’s notice.”
Few know that Reid’s first appearance on screen was in a Channel 4 drama, The Price: “I was on television as a child actress at the age of 13 and Adrian Dunbar from Line of Duty kidnapped me.”
Acting skills can be useful, I point out, when you sometimes have to be nice to people you do not necessarily like. “You mean Piers Morgan?” she quips guffawing. “It wasn’t until I worked with Piers Morgan that I understood the real definition of a love-hate relationship!”
Joking aside, the chemistry between them appears to be working well. “Doesn’t it? I know. It’s like we’ve finally found ourselves,” she says, recalling an occasion in which Morgan talked over her so much she pretended to be a dummy controlled by his ventriloquist.
“I think people like the fact I stand up to him, call him out on it. I always say I would never talk about Piers in any way other than how I would speak to his face. I think now both of us are working even better together. There’s still that banter, there’s still that fun sense of ‘what might happen?’ but I think we’ve found a better balance actually.”
While the referendum result was leave, it looks as though the way Reid and GMB have performed has helped the show remain a fixture on ITV.
“We’ve had the most energetic, engaged response from viewers I’ve ever known,” she explains. “People are more politically vocal than I’ve known at any other time and they are so interested in what the next person is going to say … That’s so exhilarating for us as journalists. It’s not just about reporting the news, you want to hear things first because you’ve asked the question that somebody answers that they might not have been asked.”
When asked who else she would like to interview, Reid names Barack and Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton but does not want to look too far forward to what else she might do in the future.
“I’ve absolutely no idea and I’ve never had a plan, it’s all about being in this moment. I’m loving what we’re doing. These are difficult challenging times, times of risk and opportunity and we were on air when history was being made on Friday morning. Why would you want to be anywhere else?”
Curriculum vitae
Age 45
Education St Paul’s Girls’ School, London, Bristol University, Cardiff School of Journalism
Career 1994 news producer, BBC Radio Bristol 1996 producer, BBC Radio 5 Live 2001 reporter, BBC News Channel 2004 presenter, BBC Breakfast 2014 presenter, Good Morning Britain
