Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr is the host of The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, the agenda-setting interview programme.

His first edition of the Sunday morning show was broadcast on 11 September 2005.

He moved to the programme after a five-year stint as Political Editor at BBC News.

Andrew also presents BBC Radio 4’s Start The Week each Monday morning. He joined the programme in November 2002.

Broadcasting includes a series on contemporary thinkers for BBC Two and Radio 4, and political documentaries for Channel 4 and BBC One’s Panorama. More recently he has written and presented a series on Darwin and the History of Modern Britain. Series 2 was broadcast in November 2009.

He wrote and presented Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain (BBC2), winning a string of awards including a Royal Television Society award for best historical programme.

Most recently he presented a series, Andrew Marr’s Megacities, examining the life, development and challenges of some of the largest cities in the world. Early in 2012 he will be presenting a series called Diamond Queen to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee. In the Autumn 2012, his latest history series – a history of the world will be transmitted.

He was born on 31 July 1959, in Glasgow, Scotland.

He attended Dundee High School, Craigflower School in Fife, and Loretto School, Musselburgh. He then gained a BA in English from Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Andrew joined The Scotsman as a trainee and junior/business reporter in 1981 and became parliamentary correspondent in 1984 and political correspondent in 1986.

He worked for two years at The Independent, then returned to The Scotsman as political editor in 1986.

He moved to become political editor at The Economist from 1988 to 1992.

He then returned to The Independent as chief political commentator in 1992 and was promoted to editor in 1996.

He became a columnist for The Express and The Observer in 1998 before being appointed as BBC political editor in May 2000.

Andrew has had seven books published: The Battle for Scotland (Penguin, 1992); Ruling Britannia (Penguin, 1996, 1998); The Day Britain Died (Profile, 2000); My Trade (Macmillan, 2004); a History of Modern Britain (2007); A History of Modern Britain part 2 (2009); and The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and Her People (27 October 2011). A History of the World will be published in 2012.

He has received more than a dozen major awards for writing and broadcasting – including from BAFTA, the Royal Television Society and most recently the Broadcasting Press Guild, which awarded two prizes for the Andrew Marr Show and Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain.

In July 2009 Marr and his wife were both awarded honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University.

Andrew lists his hobbies as reading (he was the chair of judges, Samuel Johnson Prize, 2001), painting, and cooking.