Emily, who had just taken over on the BBC current affairs show, was panicking that she would be thought biased when a clip of her reaction to Barry Gardiner went viral. It happened in March after the Labour MP would not say what “Brexit vision” would be on his party’s manifesto, just days before the UK was originally leaving the EU. “It was bizarre,” Emily told Good Housekeeping magazine.
“I don’t think I realised until I woke up the next morning and checked Twitter; it was trending. I could not remember it at first and when I did, I thought, ‘Oh no’ and, ‘Has that landed me in trouble?’ It wasn’t meant to be a political position. I have reached an age where I think, ‘I have done this long enough, I am not being stupid, you’ve not answered the questions’.”
The 48-year-old took the top presenting role on an all-woman team with Kirsty Wark and Emma Barnett.
She said: “It felt really nice. We have a female editor who is incredibly thoughtful, encouraging and supportive, and I present with two other women who are just great.
“The loveliest thing was the response from the team which was ‘about bloody time’, and so I ended up thinking it had all sort of fallen into place.”
READ MORE: BBC host ROLLS EYES and loses patience with Labour MP – ‘People pulling their HAIR out’
Her appointment came as Brexit was top of every agenda, something she feels has made the audience more responsive.
“It’s made people simultaneously more engaged with politics and more frustrated and dismissive of politics,” she said. But one career downside is that Emily barely gets to see her husband, banker Mark Gwynne.
They met while she was in Hong Kong working for Channel 4 News and got engaged on New Year’s Eve 1999 when she proposed.
They have two sons, Milo, 14, and Max, 12.
Emily said: “We’re like ships that pass in the night, but it works.
“My best night is Saturday as it’s always at home. I hate going out on Saturday nights; I like a box set, red wine, and that is it.”
● The full interview can be seen in Good Housekeeping’s October issue, on sale from Wednesday.
