Now a freelance journalist and broadcaster, John Sergeant spent 30 years at the BBC and was their Chief Political Correspondent. He was then Political Editor of ITN for three years.
A frequent and popular after dinner speaker, John is often invited to host awards, not only in the UK but internationally. John frequently appears as a guest on television and radio programmes, many of them with a humorous leaning.
In 1990 John won a Press Guild Award for the most memorable outside broadcast: Margaret Thatcher interrupted his report outside the Paris Embassy to announce her participation in the second round of the Conservative Party leadership ballot.
He has hosted Have I Got News For You? and The Battle of the Books for BBC TV, and is a regular guest on Radio 4 shows including the News Quiz, Quote Unquote, Front Row, Where in the World, Personality Test, X Marks the Spot, With Great Pleasure, and current affairs programmes, including Today and BH.
He appeared in the BBC2’s Big Read (promoting Catch 22) and Britain’s Best Sitcom (supporting Blackadder), also on BBC2. He has been a guest on Any Questions (R4) and Questiontime (BBC1). He has also contributed to the Culture Show on BBC1.
John chaired the judges in the ITV political reality show Vote For Me, giving the public the opportunity to choose a candidate to fight in the most recent General Election.
Following the success of his memoirs, Give Me Ten Seconds, he has toured the country with his one-man show, “An Audience with John Sergeant.” He is also the author of Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy.
He has written for the Sunday Times and the Radio Times, and is a travel writer with the Daily Mail. He has been on assignments in New England and Spain, and in 2005 to French Polynesia. In 2006, he guest lectured on cruises in the Baltic and has worked with Swan Hellenic, P&O and Fred Olsen.
John has been President of the Johnson Society, based in Lichfield, which champions the work of Dr. Johnson, and he was a member of the Hansard Commission, which published a critical report on the workings of Parliament.
In 2008, John partnered Kristina Rihanoff in the 6th series of the hugely-popular TV show Strictly Come Dancing. Although he repeatedly finished last after the judges’ votes, the public consistently voted to keep him in the competition. A much-viewed clip shows John pulling Kristina across the floor as part of a dance routine. He left the show in Week 10, after a farewell dance, saying “The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me, that would be a joke too far.”