At least someone’s having a good Brexit!
With her trademark bob and red lippy, Sky’s deputy political editor is rarely off our screens. Now she is widely tipped for promotion for her Brexit coverage, but who exactly is Beth Rigby?
IF THE bright red lipstick and Essex accent are the first thing a politician notices about Beth Rigby, then they are probably already in trouble and about to land deeper in it. Behind the friendly smile, the Sky News deputy political editor is as sharp as a stiletto… and we’re talking knives not heels.
In any case, the keep-fit fanatic is more likely to be found running around Westminster in trainers than Manolo Blahniks and she has certainly been running rings round some of our MPs during her extensive coverage of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.
With her signature bob of dark hair, she is regularly seen dashing up and down the streets around the Palace of Westminster, shoving a microphone under the noses of the great and the good – and the not so good.
At least someone in Parliament has been having a good Brexit.
“Riggers” as she is known to friends, has been steadily enhancing an already glowing reputation, making the interminable political machinations not only understandable but entertaining too.
She was at her feisty best on Tuesday night, bursting Boris Johnson’s bubble as he emerged triumphant from the key vote that paved the way for Theresa May to start fresh talks with the EU over Britain’s withdrawal agreement.
Such is Rigby’s approachable nature, and the recognition of her ability by politicians on all sides, that she was able to grab the key Brexiteer for interview and he addressed her by her first name, as so many of his parliamentary colleagues do.
“Well, Beth,” he began. The Prime Minister was now in a position to go to Brussels and get the freedom clause that the UK needs, he said.
With immaculate timing, Rigby interrupted, hinting that the PM’s likely success was a fantasy, and said: “Just as she rides off on her unicorn to Brussels, the reality check landed in my phone…
“This is from (European Council president Donald) Tusk’s spokesperson, ‘The backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation’.”
Then she told Boris to his face: “You lot are deluded… it’s not happening. It’s not happening.”
ONE admiring Twitter follower observed later: “The BBC would have sacked Beth Rigby for speaking to Boris like that. She is impressive.”
Born in Essex, she has a father who was the son of a plumber born into a working class family in Lancaster. He won a place at grammar school, then a scholarship to Cambridge University and enjoyed a business career at a blue chip firm.
Beth attended Beaconsfield High School in Buckinghamshire before gaining a first-class honours degree in social and political science at Cambridge University and then going on to get a masters in Latin American studies from the University of London. With distinction.
She joined the Financial Times as a graduate trainee and was retail correspondent, then hedge fund correspondent and consumer industries editor before becoming chief political correspondent in 2010. Two years later she was the deputy political editor.
After 15 years with the FT, she moved to The Times as media editor before joining Sky News in 2016 as a senior political correspondent.
A fellow journalist in the Westminster lobby said: “She is sharp as a tack but great fun too. As a working mum she has plenty on her plate, dealing with her home life as well as any tantrums and childishness in the House of Commons. But she takes it all in her stride and still finds time to keep fit. She’s a very keen runner.
“She is acutely aware of the fact that she drops her Gs when she’s talking, because of her home counties upbringing – so MPs are always fightin’ when they should be lookin’ after the workin’ class – but she knows there’s not much she can do about it. It’s the way she has always spoken.”
It means she gets regularly ribbed – gently by her parliamentary colleagues and mercilessly by internet trolls. But Rigby is happy to give as good as she gets.
In a social media exchange during Tuesday night’s Brexit votes she responded to one tweeter’s comment saying: “I don’t know what this means. I’m over 40.”
She later wrote: “I’m going have to ask my nine-year-old translate when I get home.”
Beth learns a lot from the sometimes irreverent humour of her close friend and Sky presenter Kay Burley, and that alliance could be getting stronger. Last year Rigby to to TRADEMARK: Refreshing her distinctive bright-red lipstick and, right, on screen with her pal Kay Burley was named by the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 as one of London’s most influential storytellers, but her rise to prominence has not been all smooth running.
Last October, during the Conservative Party conference, a video was leaked of her being sworn at off-air by Adam Boulton. The veteran Sky News journalist, who was political editor for 25 years before becoming editor at large, was filmed telling a colleague off camera where to place a chair for Beth to sit in.
“If Beth comes, put her in there… then she can go away,” he said, before rolling his eyes in an apparent unspoken comment about his junior colleague. Seconds later he told the colleague: “Well, she’s going to have to come and ******* sit here if she wants to be on telly.” Then, when she arrived, off camera, he shouted at her: “Sit down there! Stop ******* around!”
Bolton later apologised Rigby took it in her stride.
Now the word is that she is in the final three being considered to take over from Sky News’s current political editor Faisal Islam.
We could soon be seeing even more of “Riggers” on our screens, and politicians will need to watch their step. but