David Dimbleby (born 28 October 1938) is an English journalist and former presenter of
current affairs and political programmes, best known for having presented the BBC topical debate programme ''
Question Time
A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...
''. He is the son of broadcaster
Richard Dimbleby
Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.
As host of the long-running current affairs ...
and elder brother of
Jonathan Dimbleby
Jonathan Dimbleby (born 31 July 1944) is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, author and historian. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of television presenter David Dimbleby.
...
, of the
Dimbleby family Dimbleby is an English-language surname, notable bearers of which include the following:
*Richard Dimbleby (1913–1965), BBC television news commentator and war reporter
*David Dimbleby (born 1938), elder son of Richard, journalist and host of BB ...
. Long involved in the coverage of national events, Dimbleby hosted the BBC Election Night coverage from
1979 to
2017, as well as United States presidential elections on the BBC until 2016.
He has also presented and narrated documentary series on architecture and history.
Biography
Early life
Dimbleby was born in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
, the son of the journalist and
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
war correspondent Richard Dimbleby
Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.
As host of the long-running current affairs ...
, by his marriage to Dilys Thomas, from Wales. His younger brother is
Jonathan Dimbleby
Jonathan Dimbleby (born 31 July 1944) is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, author and historian. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of television presenter David Dimbleby.
...
, also a television current affairs presenter. David Dimbleby was educated at two independent schools, the Glengorse School in
Battle, East Sussex
Battle is a small town and civil parish in the local government district of Rother in East Sussex, England. It lies south-east of London, east of Brighton and east of Lewes. Hastings is to the south-east and Bexhill-on-Sea to the south. ...
, and
Charterhouse
Charterhouse may refer to:
* Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order
Charterhouse may also refer to:
Places
* The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery
* Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey
Londo ...
in
Godalming
Godalming is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settleme ...
, Surrey, where he was a contemporary of the journalist
Adam Raphael
Adam Eliot Geoffrey Raphael (born 22 April 1938) is an English journalist and author. In the British Press Awards of 1973, he was named Journalist of the Year for his work on labour conditions in South Africa, and he has also been a presenter of ...
. The two younger Dimblebys both made their television débuts in the 1950s in the BBC's first holiday programme ''Passport'', at a time when the whole family would visit resorts in Switzerland or
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
. A holiday programme for the home counties, called ''No Passport'', was also broadcast.
After learning French in Paris and Italian in
Perugia
Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia.
The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...
, Dimbleby read
Philosophy, Politics and Economics at
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...
and graduated with a third-class degree. While at Oxford he was President of the Christ Church
Junior Common Room
A common room is a group into which students and the academic body are organised in some universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland—particularly collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the University of Bristol ...
, a member of the
Bullingdon Club – a socially exclusive student dining and drinking society – and also editor of the student magazine ''
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
''.
Early career
Dimbleby joined the BBC as a news reporter in
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
in the 1960s and has appeared in news programmes since 1962, early on co-presenting the televised version of the school quiz ''
Top of the Form'', and was a reporter on the BBC's coverage of the
1964 general election with his father as linkman. Richard Dimbleby died the following year.
On 24 July 1967, Dimbleby was one of seventy signatories to an advertisement in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' advocating the decriminalisation of
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
use, which had been written by campaigner
Stephen Abrams. An incident in 1969 led to Dimbleby, then freelance, being called in by the BBC's Director of Television. During U.S. President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's visit to the UK, a reference by Dimbleby to UK and US government heads' "'expensively hired"
press secretaries
Press may refer to:
Media
* Print media or news media, commonly called "the press"
* Printing press, commonly called "the press"
* Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers
* Press TV, an Iranian television network
People
* Press (surname), a famil ...
"whose job is to disguise the truth" was given much attention by the British press.
Dimbleby became involved in a number of projects that combined his established role as presenter and interviewer with documentary making. An early example of this was ''
Yesterday's Men
"Yesterday's Men" is a song by the English ska and pop band Madness, released on 19 August 1985 as the lead single from their sixth studio album '' Mad Not Mad'' (1985). It was written by Graham McPherson and Chris Foreman, and produced by C ...
'' (1971), a film which the BBC recognises "ridiculed" the Labour opposition and led to a major conflict between the Corporation and the
Labour Party; Dimbleby had his name removed from the credits because of the concessions that were made. In 1974, he became the presenter of ''
Panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'', which had been presented by his father.
Dimbleby anchored the BBC's overnight coverage of the
1979 general election, and continued in this role for the following
ten general elections.
In addition to election coverage, he also hosted BBC
Budget specials, and was a presenter of the BBC early evening weekday current affairs series ''
Nationwide''. During the same period (beginning in 1979), Dimbleby has also been the anchor for the BBC's European Elections results programmes and in 2008 and 2012, anchored the BBC's coverage of the US Election night.
Dimbleby was the main presenter of the BBC's political series ''This Week Next Week'' (1984–88),
broadcast on Sunday early afternoons, as a competitor to ITV's established ''
Weekend World
''Weekend World'' is a British television political series, made by London Weekend Television (LWT) and broadcast from 1972 to 1988.
Created by John Birt, not long after he had joined LWT, the series was broadcast on the ITV network at midday ...
'' series. As early as 1987, he was a contender for the position of
Director-General of the BBC
The director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief of the BBC.
The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC (for the period of 1927 to 2007) and then t ...
(losing out to
Michael Checkland
Sir Michael Checkland (born 13 March 1936) was Director-General of the BBC from 1987 to 1992, being appointed after the forced resignation of Alasdair Milne.
Early life
Michael Checkland was educated at the state grammar school King Edward ...
).
''This Week Next Week'' was replaced in 1988 by the ''
On the Record'', a political series presented until 1993 by his younger brother, Jonathan Dimbleby. Meanwhile, he continued to work in documentaries, including ''The White Tribe of Africa'' (1979), an award-winning four-part history of South Africa's
Afrikaans community and the rise of
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
, ''An Ocean Apart'' (1988), an examination of the history of
Anglo-American relations
Anglo-Americans are people who are English-speaking inhabitants of Anglo-America. It typically refers to the nations and ethnic groups in the Americas that speak English as a native language, making up the majority of people in the world who spe ...
, and ''Rebellion!'' (1999), a history of Britain's troubled relations with
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
.
By this time, Dimbleby was established as the anchor for the BBC's coverage of events of national importance, such as the
State Opening of Parliament, the
Trooping the Colour
Trooping the Colour is a ceremony performed every year in London, United Kingdom, by regiments of the British Army. Similar events are held in other countries of the Commonwealth. Trooping the Colour has been a tradition of British infantry regi ...
, the
National Service of Remembrance
The National Service of Remembrance is held every year on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, London. It commemorates "the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and ...
service at the
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...
in
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main ...
.
From 1994
Dimbleby served as chairman of the BBC's Thursday evening topical debate programme ''
Question Time
A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...
'' from 1994 until 2018. One of the most memorable moments from ''Question Time'' was when Dimbleby accidentally referred to
Robin Cook
Robert Finlayson "Robin" Cook (28 February 19466 August 2005) was a British Labour politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 until his death in 2005 and served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 until 2001 wh ...
as "Robin Cock", to which Cook responded by jokingly referring to Dimbleby as "David Bumblebee".
In 1999, Dimbleby opened ''
2000 Today'', the BBC's coverage of the millennium celebrations, from
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
, England.
He commentated on the funerals of
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...
in 1997,
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...
in 2002
and former
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
in 2013,
as well as the state visit of
US President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
to the UK in 2003. In 2002, Dimbleby hosted the
Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II
The Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II was the international celebration held in 2002 marking the 50th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952. It was intended by the Queen to be both a commemoration of her 50 years a ...
coverage. A profile by
Ben Summerskill
Ben Jeffrey Peter Summerskill (born 6 October 1961 in Kent) is chair of The Silver Line and director of the Criminal Justice Alliance, a consortium of 135 charities working across the GB criminal justice pathway. He was the chief executive of th ...
for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' in 2001 quoted an unnamed former Cabinet Minister who had observed Dimbleby's career for many decades: "I suspect he has an almost medieval view, that the Queen governs through Parliament... There are a few quarrels among the subjects – over which he presides very capably – but they have very little to do with what Britain is really about."
Dimbleby, though, has himself criticised what he sees as archaic elements of the State Opening of Parliament.
David Dimbleby was chairman of the Dimbleby Newspaper Group, former publishers of the ''
Richmond and Twickenham Times
The ''Richmond and Twickenham Times'' is a weekly local newspaper that was established in 1873 and is published on Fridays. It covers the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London and surrounding areas.
It is delivered free to ...
'', acquired by the
Newsquest Media Group
Newsquest Media Group Ltd. is the second largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the United Kingdom. It is owned by the American mass media holding company Gannett. It has 205 brands across the UK, publishing online and in print ...
in 2001 for a reported £12,000,000.
There were reports in 2004 that Dimbleby was shortlisted for the
chairmanship of the BBC. However, the position was eventually awarded to
Michael Grade
Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, (born 8 March 1943) is an English television executive and businessman. He has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1 (1984–1986), chief executive of Channel 4 ( ...
. Dimbleby was a contender for the chairmanship in the corporation's tumultuous period following 2001,
which went to
Gavyn Davies
Gavyn Davies, OBE (born 27 November 1950) is a former Goldman Sachs partner who was the chairman of the BBC from 2001 until 2004. On 28 January 2004 he announced that he was resigning his BBC post following the publication of the Hutton Inqui ...
. He has instead remained, according to Mark Duguid for the BFI's screenonline website, best known for his "gravitas, journalistic integrity and consummate professionalism" and as "a paragon of impartiality"
as a narrator and moderator, of British politics.
In 2005, he hosted a BBC One series, ''
A Picture of Britain
''A Picture of Britain'' is a 2005 BBC television documentary series presented by David Dimbleby, which describes the British landscape and the art which it has inspired. In each of the six 1-hour episodes Dimbleby explores a different British ...
'', celebrating British and Irish paintings, poetry, music and landscapes. In June 2007 he wrote and presented a follow-up, the BBC series, ''
How We Built Britain
''How We Built Britain'' is a series of six television documentaries produced by the BBC in 2007 and repeated in 2008. The series was written and presented by broadcaster David Dimbleby. In the series Dimbleby visits some of Britain's great histo ...
'', in which he explored the history of British architecture by visiting a region of Britain and its historic buildings each week. David Dimbleby also presented a new series on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...
, ''
Seven Ages of Britain''. In early editions of the programme, he looked at the
Bayeux Tapestry and exhibits to do with
Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...
.
On 12 November 2009, Dimbleby missed his first
''Question Time'' in over fifteen years, having been taken to hospital as a precaution after being briefly knocked out by a
rearing bullock
Bullock may refer to:
Animals
* Bullock (in British English), a castrated male bovine animal of any age
* Bullock (in North America), a young bull (an uncastrated male bovine animal)
* Bullock (in Australia, India and New Zealand), an ox, an adu ...
at his farm in
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
.
Dimbleby hosted the third of three
televised election debates featuring the leaders of the three main political parties held in the run-up to the
2010 general election. On the night of the 2010 general election, Dimbleby hosted the BBC coverage, along with
Jeremy Vine
Jeremy Guy Vine (born 17 May 1965) is an English television and radio personality, presenter, broadcaster and journalist. He is best known as the host of his BBC Radio 2 lunchtime programme which presents news, views, interviews with live guest ...
,
Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English broadcaster, journalist, author, and television presenter. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate new ...
,
Nick Robinson Nicholas, Nicky or Nick Robinson may refer to:
* Nick Robinson (journalist) (born 1963), British political journalist
* Nick Robinson (paperfolder) (born 1957), British origami artist
* Nicky Robinson (rugby union) (born 1982), Welsh rugby player ...
, and
Emily Maitlis
Emily Maitlis (born 6 September 1970) is a British journalist, documentary filmmaker, and former newsreader for the BBC. She was the lead anchor until the end of 2021 of ''Newsnight'', the BBC Two news and current affairs programme.
Early lif ...
. Presenting from
BBC Television Centre
Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for TV production, opera ...
Studio 1, he was an anchor and involved commentary contributions, guest interviews, and introducing live outside broadcasts. In 2013, Dimbleby presented ''
Britain and the Sea'' and a year later, he presented ''
The European Union: In or Out''. In 2015, Dimbleby hosted the first
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
overnight on 23–24 June 2016, when the UK became the first and only country to vote to leave the
. In this programme, he made the following quote to the country when the BBC released its forecast for a Leave win at 04:40
:
On 20 April 2017, the BBC announced Dimbleby would host their coverage of the
would be his last.
On 17 June 2018, the BBC announced Dimbleby would leave ''Question Time'' after 25 years at the end of that year. On 7 December 2018, the BBC announced that
would take over presenting duties from January 2019.
Since his retirement from ''Question Time'', Dimbleby has presented occasional documentaries for the BBC.
In 2019, and in some of his first work outside the BBC for decades, he presented an acclaimed series of podcasts on the life of media mogul
entitled ''The Sun King''. This focused on various key moments in Murdoch's professional career such as his takeover of newspapers around the world,
. It also attempts to examine Murdoch's personal motivations and his political influence.
In 2020 Dimbleby continued his foray into podcasting, presenting a series on the lead-up to the
. The series examined the events in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion asking whether it was justified at the time, and whether it could have been avoided. It also closely analysed the relationship between
, with Blair being interviewed as part of the series.
In October 2020 Dimbleby said he was again considering putting his name forward for chairman of the BBC.
In September 2022, Dimbleby came out of retirement to commentate on the
.
In October 2022, Dimbleby stated that the BBC does not appropriately question the power of the
. He said that the BBC would not address controversial topics to do with the monarchy, such as its ability to change tax legislation or the fact that the
, and stated his disagreement that such matters were not examined. He also stated his shock for the amount of control the monarchy have over broadcasting covering them.
Although the brothers presented election coverage on competing channels, when asked in an interview about rival
in their 2005 election broadcast, Dimbleby commented, "They've got Jonathan Dimbleby, what do they need Kevin Spacey for?"
Dimbleby has three children with his first wife,
, a jazz and folk singer.
In 2000, Dimbleby married Belinda Giles, a granddaughter of
with whom he had a son, Fred, in February 1998. Dimbleby lives in
. He is a supporter of
.
.
In 2019, he received the Special Recognition Award for his services to news and current affairs at the
in London.