Jeremy Vine

Personal background

Jeremy Vine was born in Epsom. He is the elder son of Guy Vine and Diana Tillett. His younger brother is the comedian Tim Vine. Jeremy is married to BBC News presenter Rachel Schofield. The couple married in September 2002 in East Devon, and have two daughters.

Jeremy was educated at Lynton Preparatory School in Ewell, then Aberdour School in Burgh Heath, and then Epsom College. He played the drums in a band called The Flared Generation, which was described as "the most unfashionable punk band in the country" by Smash Hits magazine. At Durham University (Hatfield College), he graduated with a 2:2 undergraduate degree in English.

After a short stint on Metro Radio, Vine enrolled in a journalism training course with the Coventry Evening Telegraph, before joining the BBC in 1987.

A former punk, he is a fan of Elvis Costello, whom he has seen 13 times in concert. According to an interview he gave in March 2015 on his Radio 2 show, his favourite song is Whole Lotta Rosie by AC/DC. Vine is the patron of Radio St. Helier, a UK registered charity providing radio programmes to patients at St. Helier Hospital in southwest London.

Vine is a practising Anglican. He has deplored the marginalisation of Christians in British society, saying that "You can't express views that were common currency 30 or 40 years ago".

He was named Speech Broadcaster of the Year in the 2011 Sony Awards. (He won the same award in 2005.) His 2010 election interview with Gordon Brown, where the Prime Minister put his head in his hands as he was played the recording of him calling a voter a bigot, won Vine the Sony Award for Interview of the Year.

Television reporting

Vine's career at the BBC included reading the news on radio in Northern Ireland and working as a researcher on the BBC1 series Heart of the Matter. In 1989, he became a regular reporter on the BBC Radio 4 programme Today, filing reports from across Europe.

While working for Today, he published two comic novels set amidst the modern Church of England, including Forget Heaven, Just Kiss Me (1992) and The Whole World in My Hands (1993). The novels were not successful and Vine now regards them as juvenilia.

In the mid-1990s, Vine became familiar with BBC TV viewers as a political reporter, reporting on the modernisation of the Labour Party. He later made his mark offering irreverent reports on the 1997 General Election.

After the 1997 election, Vine became the Africa Correspondent based in Johannesburg, travelling all over Africa. Reporting assignments took him to the war front to report on the Eritrean–Ethiopian War, the Angolan Civil War, the violence in Lesotho after South African troops went in and hoisted a South African flag over the Royal Palace, following leadership disputes. He also travelled to Algiers and Kenya, to report during political elections.

Vine was successful in gaining interviews with key leaders in various African nations. Two of these included Robert Mugabe, current President of Zimbabwe; and the leader of the Islamist regime in Khartoum, Sudan. Other areas of Africa from which he has reported include Mali, Zambia, Sierra Leone and the Niger Delta, to report on the Nigerian villagers' unrest over the work of the oil companies.

In April 1999, Vine presented an exclusive report on South African police brutality for BBC Two's Newsnight. The film won the Silver Nymph at the Monte Carlo Television Festival, and resulted in the suspension of 22 police officers. Following this report, Vine joined Newsnight full-time as a presenter. He was one of the original presenters of Broadcasting House on BBC Radio 4.

Television presenting

Vine presented The Politics Show on BBC One from its launch in 2003, until Jon Sopel took over in 2005.

In May 2006, Vine was announced as Peter Snow's replacement for presenting the BBC election graphics, including the famous Swingometer. His performance on the night of the council elections in England and Wales on 30 April 2008, was widely criticised.

In January 2007, Vine became the presenter of the BBC's flagship and the world's oldest current affairs programme, Panorama, which coincided with the show's move back to a Monday peak-time slot.

In 2008, Vine started presenting Points of View, taking over from Terry Wogan. On 6 October 2008, he started hosting the BBC Two quiz show Eggheads while the spin-off show, Are You an Egghead?, was presented by the regular host, Dermot Murnaghan. Once the spin-off show had finished, Vine continued to host the second half of each series, with Murnaghan hosting the first half. In Series 16, it was announced that Vine had become the sole presenter. As of 2014, Vine also hosted the spin-off series Revenge of the Egghead. The series ran for a 6-week period, between 24 February and 4 April 2014.

Since September 2016 Jeremy Vine has been the presenter of Crimewatch.

Radio broadcasting

In January 2003, after several stints as a stand-in for Jimmy Young on BBC Radio 2 Vine took over the weekday lunchtime show on a regular basis. The show consists of a mix of news-based discussions including views from listeners, interspersed with popular music. After Vine took over the hosting duties, the show was revamped. While the regular Thursday food slot was dropped, the Monday health and Friday legal advice slots were retooled.

Monday's The Health and Wellbeing Hour includes either Dr Sarah Jarvis or Rabbi Julia Neuberger, while Friday's Your Money and Your Life, involves a variety of contributors, most frequently Martin Lewis. Friday's shows frequently include a link-up to gardener Terry Walton. Until October 2006, Lucy Berry served as the show's in-house poet.

In 2005, Vine won the best speech broadcaster award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards.

He currently hosts the show What Makes Us Human on BBC Radio 2.

Strictly Come Dancing

On 10 August 2015, Vine was the first celebrity to be announced as taking part in the thirteenth series of the popular BBC One competition Strictly Come Dancing . Vine was partnered with professional, Karen Clifton. On the fourth week of the contest, after Vine danced a jive to Bobby Darin’s "Splish Splash", Bruno Tonioli described him as a "Peculiar, off-the-wall artist like Tracey Emin", and Craig Revel Horwood compared him to "a stork that had been struck by lightning." In week eight of the show he was in the dance-off, alongside Jamelia, and voted out of the show; finishing in ninth place.

Controversies

It was revealed on 4 February 2015 that Vine received a five-figure sum for a post-dinner speech at a £250-a-head banquet organised by ADS Group, the trade organisation that represents defence and security industries in the UK, and attended by global arms manufacturers. Campaign Against Arms Trade lodged a formal complaint with the BBC, claiming a conflict for the organisation appearing to support an industry which “profits from dictatorships which silence and suppress debate”. This prompted a BBC response saying: “Jeremy is a freelance presenter and so can make personal appearances without speaking on behalf of the BBC, as he did here.”

Personal life

Vine was married to an American banker, Janelle, for seven years, which ended in 2000. Vine stated that it was very sad, but their jobs and travel meant they had seen very little of each other in three years. He is now married to Rachel Schofield, a journalist and news presenter. They have two daughters.

Vine is a Christian and attends an Anglican church.

In August 2016, a car driver threatened and was abusive to Vine while he was cycling along Hornton Street in Kensington, London. Vine captured the encounter on his helmet camera, later broadcasting it on YouTube where it was viewed several million times. Vine also reported it to the police. On 18 April 2017 the car driver was jailed for nine months for threatening behaviour.