Broadcaster Sarah Smith has told how her dad’s job leading the Labour Party put her off a career as a politician.
Smith, the BBC’s North America editor, followed her father John’s footsteps to study at Glasgow University but decided to train to become a journalist. Since then she has covered some of the most significant political events in recent years, including the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.
Smith, 53, who returned to Britain to join the BBC’s reporting team after the Queen’s death, told university alumni magazine Avenue that her father had been her “biggest inspiration”. The Rt Hon John Smith served as an MP for almost a quarter of a century and, as leader of the UK Labour Party, was widely considered to be prime minister-in-waiting at the time of his sudden death in 1994, aged just 55.
