The BBC has issued a statement in defence of Laura Kuenssberg after several viewers made complaints about her recent interview with Ed Davey.
Kuenssberg co-hosted the BBC’s coverage of the 2024 general election earlier this month, and the following Sunday, returned to her weekly politics show on BBC One.
It was there that she interviewed several key figures about the results of the election, including Deavey.
However, some viewers (including TV personality Carol Vorderman) took issue with the way Kuenssberg began the exchange, reacting to the Liberal Democrats scoring their highest ever number of seats by telling the party’s leader: “Congratulations – I suppose – on your more than 70 seats.”
Following this, official complaints were made to the BBC, to which it responded on its website on Friday.
The BBC said: “Across the programme, the success of the Liberal Democrats was reflected a number of times, with Laura Kuenssberg reflecting: ‘More of you voted for other parties than ever before’ and ‘This election made history for all sorts of reasons and when you put the votes together, the “smaller” parties got their highest ever share of the votes’.
“The interview with the leader of the Liberal Democrats was live, with an unscripted congratulations beginning the first question on the work that lay ahead for their 72 MPs.
“Laura’s approach to every interview is to be courteous, fair and duly impartial. Viewers may have their own judgements about the tone and conduct of an exchange, but we believe our political guests are given a fair hearing.
“The host’s questioning and delivery was in line with the fundamental part of her role as a presenter and journalist. This gives our audience an informed and impartial analysis of key political events, using her experience and judgement.”
Prior to this, the BBC defended another of its on-air presenters, Mishal Husain, after her work on the head-to-head Prime Ministerial Debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer in June was also met with complaints.