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.
But his eldest daughter revealed how growing up in a high-profile political family ensured she was never tempted to become a politician. Sarah said: “We weren’t super-famous but when we were growing up in Edinburgh, our family was a bit more prominent than others, so I was accustomed to receiving a certain amount of attention in the street.
“But what it definitely did was reinforce in me that I did not want a career in politics.
"Seeing my father’s career, where he spent 18 years in opposition, and just the deep, unending frustration of working as hard as you possibly can, believing that you’re right but not being able to do any of it, just looked so hideously frustrating it wasn’t something that I wanted to do.”
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