Britain's Alarm Clock

The Today programme is a British institution. It has a new editor, and in October turns sixty. Harry Mount got up early to pay a visit.

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It’s 4.30am in dark, empty, central London. High up in BBC Broadcasting House, a light blazes through a window. Behind that window is the small studio – the size of an average kitchen – of the Today programme. In this tiny space, the BBC records Radio 4’s most popular programme, with a weekly audience of 7.45 million people – a new record.

The show is so embedded in British life that nuclear submarine commanders depend on it. If three days pass without Today being broadcast, that constitutes official evidence of a nuclear attack – the submarine commander is then allowed to launch a retaliatory strike.

On 28th October, the Today programme celebrates its sixtieth birthday. In May, Sarah Sands, the Evening Standard editor, becomes Today’s editor, leaving her old job to George Osborne, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

For thirty years, John Humphrys, now 73, has sat with his back to that window. On the morning I sit in on the programme, he is interrogating David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

‘The big interview is what it’s all about,’ says Humphrys. ‘If you’ve got a serious interview on a serious subject with a serious Cabinet minister who is prepared to engage – as David Davis is – that’s the essence of it.’

No one has done the show as long as Humphrys. Brian Redhead (1975–93) and Sue MacGregor (1984–2002) did it for eighteen years.

‘Redhead was easily the best broadcaster in the land,’ says Humphrys. ‘He was Renaissance man. Very bright, very sharp, very quick. That’s half the trick – being able to think quickly.’

Humphrys has now been getting up before 4am, week in, week out, for three decades.