Andrew Marr’s determination to go away the BBC after 21 years was an enormous shock to the two million viewers of his Sunday morning TV present.
Was he pressured out within the Beeb’s newest woke purge of white, middle-aged males? Was he too outdated at 62, too male and too stale, for its obsessive drive for inclusivity?
The reply is much easier. He simply obtained uninterested in the muzzling of his opinions, the agonisingly early Sunday begins, having to toe the road on impartiality — and so he give up. Identical to that. He says he wished to have the ability to communicate in his personal voice.
It had one thing to do with one other voice, too. That of his father Donald who died in 2020.
Andrew Marr’s determination to go away the BBC after 21 years was an enormous shock to the two million viewers of his Sunday morning TV present
‘There isn’t a doubt my dad’s demise affected me lots,’ he says. ‘Like my stroke, it made me realise life is simply too brief to not do the stuff you really need. We’re not right here for a really very long time.’
Which can be why, simply two months right into a two-year contract he signed in October final yr, Marr (who suffered a debilitating stroke 9 years in the past) determined to give up.
He appears to nicely up a bit when speaking in regards to the father who had such a robust affect on his life and whom he misses a lot. Or is it simply the brilliant winter daylight streaming by the window that’s inflicting his eyes to good?
‘I consider him every single day, I discuss to him. I hear his voice every single day. He used to say: “You’ve solely obtained one abdomen”, which was a warning to not be grasping, particularly for cash, and most significantly to reside a purposeful life.’
That is the primary interview he has given since he determined to go away the Company. By no means in his time there did he really feel capable of communicate his thoughts publicly as he does right here on issues starting from the Royal Household to Boris Johnson, migration and, after all, the BBC. He talks, too, with disarming frankness in regards to the large stroke that just about killed him.
Many would assume that, having survived it, Marr could be considering a quiet retirement. The thought by no means crossed his thoughts.
He desires one other ten years working full pelt, one other massive chapter in his life — as massive, he says, because the final chapter of one among his favorite books, Tolstoy’s Battle And Peace. And that’s massive.
‘I need to return to being a gum-shoe reporter with a pen and a notepad in my pocket wandering the halls of Westminster, and eventually be capable of say and write what I actually assume,’ he says.
‘My leg won’t work in addition to it used to, however my mind nonetheless does,’ he laughs. Which is one other factor about him: he has a fast, typically depraved and not-very-PC sense of humour.
In reality, the left aspect of his physique remains to be deeply broken. Viewers can have observed that, on his present after the stroke, he by no means turned the pages of the newspapers together with his left hand. As a result of he couldn’t.
We’ve been mates of his for years, and once we go to eating places with him for dinners filled with gossip and laughter, one of many occasion will ask the waiter to chop up his meals.
He admits he has a clumsy and clumsy gait — which is why he was now not filmed strolling onto the set of his present.
He’d hate to be described as tenacious however that’s what he’s — regardless of the issues together with his left leg, with iron willpower he’ll stroll for miles.
When out and about, he’s typically greeted by strangers — and he’ll reply with none sense of ego.
That is the primary interview he has given since he determined to go away the Company. By no means in his time there did he really feel capable of communicate his thoughts publicly as he does right here on issues starting from the Royal Household to Boris Johnson, migration and, after all, the BBC
More than likely that’s all the way down to one among his financier father’s favorite sayings: ‘There’s a treatment for all the things, besides a swelled head.’
We meet at Marr’s North London terrace home the place his household moved after the stroke, to be nearer to BBC HQ, Broadcasting Home.
The partitions are hung together with his trendy artwork assortment and a few of his personal work self-effacingly tucked away in darker corners.
His spouse of greater than 30 years, Jackie Ashley, additionally a journalist, is at dwelling and so they’re continuously joking and laughing collectively. Marr says he feels ten years youthful since leaving the Beeb simply earlier than Christmas. He appears it, too.
As for talking his thoughts, he’s true to his phrase. Put together for Marr unleashed.
This can be a man who had a ringside seat on the royal court docket, having travelled extensively with Her Majesty in 2011 whereas filming his three-part BBC sequence The Diamond Queen. He’s a biographer of the Queen and tells us that the monarchy faces an existential disaster when Charles III involves the throne.
‘There’s a sense that the entire difficulty of the long run has not been mentioned for a really very long time, as a result of the Queen is so admired and so revered,’ he says.
‘When that horrible day comes that the Queen is now not with us, the nation will go right into a state of shock.
‘It will likely be like an moral earthquake and I don’t assume it’s absolutely understood or appreciated how that is going to be a fully large second in all our lives.
‘It’ll shake the entire nation in a means that will likely be exhausting to clarify till we truly reside by it,’ he provides.
‘I do know the Prince of Wales has plans for reforming the monarchy; it seems Charles and William will orchestrate a filter. It received’t be the identical: the fashionable monarchy below Charles has to earn its place every single day, each week and each month in folks’s affections.
‘I’m sorry to say some members of the Royal Household have been behaving like free riders.
‘They assume the monarchy — the establishment itself — can by no means be questioned. However the motive it isn’t being questioned is due to the Queen herself.’
Who’re the free riders? The Sussexes? Prince Andrew? ‘I believe you may decide for your self,’ he says with a mischievous smile.
Requested if Camilla will likely be queen, he replies: ‘I believe so, sure. If that’s what Prince Charles desires, that’s what Prince Charles will get.’
Turmoil forward for the long run king and no future for the Sussexes and Prince Andrew. We’d by no means have heard these opinions on The Andrew Marr Present.
Quickly, he’s again speaking in regards to the joys of leaving the BBC, saying he and his spouse have gotten their weekends again: no extra going to mattress at eight on Saturday nights, no extra 4am rising on Sundays.
They went out for dinner collectively final Saturday and joke that it’s the primary time they’ve achieved that in a long time, rolling dwelling simply earlier than midnight. We suspect alcohol was imbibed. Marr is keen on a great Scottish whisky.
However earlier than lengthy he’s moved on to a different contentious topic: immigration, on which he has sturdy views.
‘That is going to be maybe the only greatest political difficulty of the following 20 or 30 years,’ he insists. ‘It isn’t due to something Britain is, or isn’t, doing on the borders and even due to our poor relationship with France.
‘It’s resulting from local weather change that hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of persons are strolling throughout elements of the Center East and Africa in direction of Europe in the hunt for a greater life. And it’s going to get larger and greater and greater.’
What’s his resolution? Effectively, his views will shock anybody who thinks he’s an unreconstructed Leftie, however he’s retaining his powder dry for when he begins his new profession as a columnist for The New York Occasions, The New Statesman and his political present on LBC.
This can be a man who had a ringside seat on the royal court docket, having travelled extensively with Her Majesty in 2011 whereas filming his three-part BBC sequence The Diamond Queen. He’s a biographer of the Queen and tells us that the monarchy faces an existential disaster when Charles III involves the throne
Requested about Tradition Secretary Nadine Dorries’s announcement on freezing the BBC licence payment, Marr laughs: ‘She ought to be very, very cautious — of Daleks,’ a reference to their tendency to ‘Exterminate! Exterminate!’ their enemies.
And if he had been director-general of the BBC, what would he do? ‘In the long run, it might need to have a subscription mannequin. However it’s odd to announce the tip of the licence payment with out a substitute.’
As to the timing of the announcement when the PM was going through calls to resign: ‘It’s exhausting to withstand the suspicion that it got here at a time to save lots of the Prime Minister’s pores and skin.’
Of Partygate, Marr, who’s interviewed each PM since John Main, says ‘it’s doable Boris Johnson can proceed as Prime Minister nevertheless it’s exhausting to see how he can now be an efficient PM’.
Expressing such a view as a BBC presenter would have meant him being the one risking his job.
Whereas refusing to defend the salaries of BBC stars comparable to £1.3 million-a-year Gary Lineker, Marr does justify the £400,000 paid to the brand new director of stories, Deborah Turness. ‘Regardless of the cuts, and a few massive salaries need to go, her most vital job is to ring-fence information and present affairs. The BBC is nothing with out that.’
And he thinks one cherished establishment should be protected in any respect prices and that’s Strictly Come Dancing. The Marr household are followers and watch it collectively. ‘We love Strictly, I really like Strictly.’
‘And all of us love Craig [Revel Horwood],’ Jackie shouts from the kitchen.
He additionally defends the BBC’s protection of Brexit, which hundreds of thousands of voters believed was blatantly biased. ‘The BBC was endlessly attacked from all sides and generally these from the Left had been extra vigorous. Working throughout that point it felt like being continuously hit from all sides.’
None of us, even those that have identified Marr for many years, understand how he voted within the referendum though we suspect Stay. And but he says he predicted that the Brexit vote would triumph.
Privately, he confided his ideas to Boris Johnson. ‘I instructed him I believed he’d win. He appeared barely shocked and really involved.’
All very fascinating, however what actually made him give up the BBC’s most prestigious political present?
‘After 21 years of minding my Ps and Qs, I obtained bored of it. These are thrilling and momentous occasions and I need to communicate extra forthrightly.’
He provides: ‘I perceive that on the BBC it’s a must to preserve your mouth shut and be very cautious. Each time I went into the studio I reminded myself I used to be broadcasting to individuals who had been paying for the BBC and so they have the precise to as impartial and fair-minded interviews as we may handle. It was very irritating.
‘Self-censoring is irritating. I’d additionally been doing the identical job for too lengthy, there’s a hazard of getting stale. Folks in massive jobs ought to be conscious that they’ll turn into bed-blockers. That there comes a time to make means for youthful expertise.’
So what else will life post-BBC be like for Marr?
Definitely, there will likely be extra travelling and extra time spent with Jackie and their three grown-up kids.
Above all, doing the issues he loves, comparable to portray. He has a studio close to their dwelling and an exhibition of six giant summary work on the Eames Gallery in Bermondsey within the spring.
‘I’m fortunate to nonetheless be alive,’ he says. ‘I spend large quantities of time portray at my studio and strolling round London because it’s the one train I can do.’
The household canine, Baxter, a stunning slobbering golden Labrador, is usually with him.
Their excursions set off a selected pet-hate: individuals who don’t clear up their canine mess. If he sees an offender, he’ll chide them or repair them with an icy glare. And as numerous politicians know to their value, the Marr stare might be withering.
He’ll miss the crew he labored with on The Andrew Marr Present. ‘Simply the folks, these good journalists, that’s all I’ll miss,’ he says.
Marr appears at peace with himself and enthusiastic about life now not tied to the apron strings of Auntie. Few may have survived the aftermath of that horrible stroke with out, at occasions, descending into despair and even self-pity. Those that know him say they’ve by no means as soon as heard him say: ‘Why me?’
Maybe his stoicism is a part of his Scottish heritage and the values he learnt at his mom Valerie’s and father Donald’s knees.
Requested if he thought his father was pleased with him, he says: ‘We’re a Scottish household, we didn’t speak about these kinds of issues — however I hope he was.’