Tribute To Sir Robin Day

Television journalist and barrister.

 Born 24th October 1923. Died 6th August 2000.


A short appreciation by Phillip Taylor

September, 2000

Robin Day was a towering figure both as the first properly recognised television questioner, and as a man who you could hardly fail to miss as he haunted the political party conferences for over thirty years with his sheer presence. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple and survived pupillage only to be denied a career as a barrister because of the problems of the profession at that difficult time after the Second World War. Then, he began his career as a journalist at Independent Television News and moved to the BBC in 1959.

Whilst he remained almost a fixture at election time, he will be remembered for launching ten years' worth of BBC's 'Question Time' which soon sank without trace as a serious political forum after his departure. 

Whatever is said about Robin Day, I will always remember him with great fondness. He wrote to me after I had left the Corporation, on BBC headed paper, concerning a matter and pointed out to me that my letter to him contained a spelling mistake (no spelling checkers in those days!). He was quite right to tell me about this, and he even had to correct his secretary's spelling mistake in the letter to me! It just goes to show what a consummate professional he was. And, he was always courteous, however tough the questioning of political leaders. When John Nott walked out of a BBC studio in a fit of pique when called a 'transient politician, here today, gone tomorrow', it was Nott who looked the fool and not Robin.

The English Bar lost out when Robin joined television. His splendid forensic skill is, in my view, a lesson which Jeremy Paxman and John Humphreys should learn from because being rude to politicians does democracy a disfavour. I always feel that Robin Day would have been a marvellous, albeit truculent, back-bench MP or Select Committee chairman. It is just a great shame that his only Liberal candidacy ended in failure. He was a good man who kept our representatives on their toes with most effective cross-examination techniques. He will be sorely missed.