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John Humphrys holds a Bafta silver mask. The veteran broadcaster was as notorious for his controversy as he was renowned for his triumphs.
The veteran broadcaster was as notorious for his controversy as he was renowned for his triumphs. Photograph: Huw John/Rex/Shutterstock
The veteran broadcaster was as notorious for his controversy as he was renowned for his triumphs. Photograph: Huw John/Rex/Shutterstock

The John Humphrys 'paradox': rottweiler or shy Welsh walker?

This article is more than 4 years old

The Radio 4 Today presenter steps down after 32 years, but colleagues still struggle to define him

On the morning of what would transpire to be his last day as BBC director-general, George Entwistle found himself in the Radio 4 Today studio facing John Humphrys.

The BBC was already engulfed by the unfolding Jimmy Savile scandal. Now, a Newsnight report had led to Tory peer Lord McAlpine being wrongly implicated in a child sexual abuse case.

“It was electric in that studio,” recalled co-presenter Jim Naughtie. “There were three of us sitting there, George, John and me. And I think all three of us knew we could see a man destroying his own job, on the spot. He was at sea. And it was a deeply uncomfortable 10 minutes.

“It’s awkward interviewing a boss. John behaved with impeccable professionalism. But I was aware, because I know John, of his incredulity at what was happening. And George, whom we both liked, was so nervous. His knee was touching the table, and I could feel the vibrations of, literally, his nervousness, panic, fear, whatever it was.”

He added: “And I remember thinking of it as a very good example of John, the professional. It was a model. Though, neither of us enjoyed the consequences of it.”

Less than 12 hours after that devastating 2012 interview, in which Entwistle admitted he had been totally unaware that Newsnight was going to make such serious allegations, he had resigned. He had been director-general for just 54 days.

George Entwistle interview in full, on Radio 4 Today Programme 10 November 2012

For 32 years Humphrys, 76, who steps down this week, has been the BBC’s attack dog: the rottweiler-in-chief. Or, the “scrappy, scruffy mongrel terrier” to the public-school pedigree great danes of the Dimblebys, Vines and Stourtons of the corporation, to quote broadcaster Libby Purves.

In recent years, that reputation for forensic brilliance has been complicated by claims that he has played a part in the rise of “gotcha”’ confrontations between politicians and journalists. He has also been described as a “modern Alf Garnett” over claims that he betrays a dismissive attitude to proponents of progressive causes from the #MeToo movement to workplace diversity.

In general, though, his political interrogations only draw complaints from their subjects. “His fearlessness and journalistic, interrogatory courage, which occasionally leads him astray, has been of incalculable value over a long period of time,” said former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer.

Humphrys is, says Damazer, “all wire and muscle. There is a tremendous amount of nervous tension in the performance. He is a coiled figure. I suspect it takes a lot out of him sometimes.”

After Harriet Harman, social services secretary in 1997, emerged from a lively grilling over cuts to single parent benefits, Labour’s communications boss David Hill threatened a boycott of the programme over “the John Humphrys problem”.

Humphrys’ Today co-presenter James Naughtie, left, pictured here in 1994, describes him as a model of professionalism. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty

He interrupted Ken Clarke, as chancellor, more than 30 times on one occasion, leading Jonathan Aitken, then chief secretary to the treasury, to accuse him of “poisoning the well of political debate” with his “ego-tripping interviewing”. The late Robin Cook, the Labour foreign secretary, admitted he couldn’t sleep the night before facing Humphrys.

Few other broadcasters attract such vitriol on social media as Harrumphing Humph, criticism that his Today co-presenter Justin Webb condemns as “ageist”. His gladiatorial style has been blamed for the diminishment of political discourse, assailing politicians in to seeking refuge in pre-cooked sound bites. Some contemporary concerns, like identity politics, and parts of popular culture, clearly leave him head-scratching and bemused, drawing complaints that he is the wrong person to cover the territory.

“Fashion isn’t John’s area of expertise,” the Today editor Sarah Sands quietly admitted after Humphrys’ clash with former UK Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman, during what should have been a light item about London Fashion Week. Shulman later raged: “I was confronted by a grey-haired man in chinos hectoring me on the business I had worked in for a quarter of a century and which he never knew, nor cared, much about.”

The worst of the car crashes have been as memorable as the Entwistle-style triumphs. Excruciatingly, the leaked audio of him asking the BBC’s North America editor Jon Sopel off air – “How much of your salary are you prepared to hand over to Carrie … I’ve handed over more than you fucking earn” – did little to diffuse the BBC gender pay gap row, sparked by the resignation of the China editor Carrie Gracie.

From pay equality to #MeToo, transgenderism, and off-colour jokes about domestic violence and spousal abuse, he has been regularly slated as sexist and a downright dinosaur. The End Violence Against Women called on the BBC to “stop Humphrys doing these interviews”. Labour MP Jess Phillips requests not to be interviewed by him.

Humphrys was noted for his adversarial interview style: an attack dog who wants to feel ‘blood in the sand’. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images

Accused of being pro-Brexit and a Tory, he states that no one knows how he votes, nor that he has he aired party political views. His convictions on certain subjects, however, can be judged from the all-too audible and derisive snorts that punctuate his interviews.

“On the core agenda of high politics and party stuff, I don’t think you are able to sit there, in the way some people do, and think, “John believes this, and John believes that,” said Damazer.

Naughtie, who sat beside him in the Today studio for 21 years, described him as “something of a paradox”.

“There is no doubt he enjoys the rottweiler image, and it’s not fake, he does get stuck in. That’s his nature. But you can’t, for a moment, think of that as being the whole man. It just isn’t.”

Humphrys wants to “feel blood in the sawdust”, said Naughtie, so fired up does he become ahead of a big interview. “And he wants to operate in a prize fighters ring.”

“There is nobody I have come across in our trade who listens more carefully to answers, looking for an opening. His ear for somebody who is starting to hesitate or waffle, or cover up is fantastically acute.”

The son of a French polisher and a hairdresser, Humphrys, one of five, grew up in Splott, a working-class area of Cardiff. He left school at 15 to join the Penarth Times, moved to the Western Mail, then joined commercial television where he was the first journalist on the scene of the 1966 Aberfan disaster, when a colliery spoil tip collapsed, engulfing a school and killing 116 children and 28 adults.

His BBC career has seen him as foreign correspondent in America and Africa. A short stint as diplomatic correspondent was followed by five years as a Nine O’Clock News anchor. When it switched to a two-presenter format – and amid reports that he was upset when given second billing to Julia Somerville – he decamped to Today.

Humphrys spent 10 years running a dairy farm Wales, and is said to love walking there. Photograph: Haydn Jones/Rex/Shutterstock

Described as a very private man, perhaps quite shy, he is not one for “prancing off to some party full of politicians”, and probably happiest when walking, “preferably in Wales”, or reading “which he does voraciously”, said Naughtie.

He spent 10 years running an organic dairy farm in west Wales. “Taking on a cabinet minister is as nothing to handling three tons of kicking cow,” he once said.

Stories abound of him berating producers and throwing things around the studio. “They usually missed and he always said sorry,” Webb said recently.

Sarah Montague, who left Today for World at One shortly after discovering Humphrys, albeit presenting more programmes, was paid four times her salary – he subsequently took a massive pay cut – has confirmed that “he doesn’t suffer fools gladly”. For all his impatience at times, colleagues speak of his being very supportive.

Working with him was “never dull and always exhilarating,” said Naughtie. “There were moments, warming up for the programme, where he would throw a wobbly about something. But it’s all part of the game; warming up to get into the ring.”

He added: “I am fond of the old bugger, I really am.”

Naughtie believes Humphrys’ stint in Africa had a profound effect, and away from the microphone he works tirelessly to raise money for the Kitchen Table Charities Trust, which he founded, and which offers grants to small organisations working in sub-Saharan Africa.

Humphrys, who has three children from two relationships, has said himself that he believes it is finally time to step down from Today, though he will continue to present Mastermind.

“I genuinely worry about what it is going to be like not doing the Today programme,” he told Montague on the World at One. “32 years is a very long time.”

More on this story

More on this story

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  • From Brexit to Brahms: John Humphrys returns to radio

  • John Humphrys: next BBC director general must be female

  • John Humphrys attacks BBC's 'liberal bias' days after retiring

  • John Humphrys' highs and lows as he prepares to exit Today

  • John Humphrys ends Today career with swipe at Corbyn and Johnson

  • Rows, bloopers and scoops: John Humphrys’ 32 years at Today

  • John Humphrys has lost touch with the times. He’s right to call it a day

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