Victoria Derbyshire’s professionalism was truly put to the test during Tuesday’s edition of Newsnight, when a guest’s phone repeatedly went off during their interview.
The BBC presenter was interviewing former Conservative MP Lord Kenneth Baker on the show about the current state of the party, when they were interrupted by a loud ringing from his pocket.
“My advice to him is…” he began, before fumbling with his device and joking: “Not to listen to my telephone. Never mind.”
After struggling to switch it off, he even turned to the host and asked if she could “turn it off” for him, which she obliged.
Or, at least, she tried.
You see, it didn’t take long for the errant phone to start ringing again. And again. And again.
Following four separate interruptions, the chaotic interview finally drew to a close, with Victoria commenting: “I’m going to leave it there. And there’s your phone… thank you so much for coming in. We appreciate it.”
As you can no doubt imagine, the unusual scene garnered quite a lot of attention over on Twitter.
While Victoria has received widespread praise for the way she dealt with the interview, many were less impressed by Lord Baker – and the fact he repeatedly mispronounced departing Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi’s name…
Of course, this is far from the first time Victoria has had to think on her feet during a live TV moment.
Back in 2021, a wardrobe issue left her off-screen at the beginning of a rather confusing news bulletin, and she previously had to issue a swift apology when she stumbled over Jeremy Hunt’s surname during a debate on her old daytime show.