The Sky News political editor sits down with Lauren Morris for The Big RT Interview to chat season 2 of Beth Rigby Interviews and more. <\/p>
When Beyonce\u0301 released Renaissance \u2013 her hit studio album inspired by disco, house and post-1970s Black dance music \u2013 in July 2022, she probably knew it would be welcomed by her millions of fans, added to party playlists across the world and climb the music charts with its floor-filling lead single Break My Soul. I doubt she\u2019d have guessed it would become the soundtrack for Sky News political editor Beth Rigby\u2019s stress-busting runs during a summer of British \u201cpolitics on steroids\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just got obsessed with it,\u201d she says. \u201cI kind of had that on a loop. I would pound the pavement and I live in East London, so I\u2019d run along all the canals and down to the Olympic Park and up through Victoria. I found a great way of releasing the tension.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, the journalist has been incredibly busy since moving into TV in 2016, but it was the past year in particular that pushed Rigby to her limits. \u201cWe had three prime ministers in seven weeks from Boris Johnson\u2019s fall to Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak. It was the most bonkers political period I\u2019ve ever covered.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Rigby spent that period attending press conferences and grilling MPs with an interview style she describes as the \u201cJeremy Paxman, \u2018Why is this b*****d lying to me?\u2019 approach\u201d as Sky\u2019s political editor, she was also switching gears to host her chat show Beth Rigby Interviews.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re meeting via Zoom to chat about its second season, which launched earlier this month \u2013 although, upon realising that we\u2019re both from towns in Buckinghamshire, we spend the first five minutes comparing notes on Marlow pubs (\u201cI used to go to the Cross Keys \u2013 did you go there?\u201d).<\/p>\n
Although chatting to Rigby is one of the most interesting interviews I\u2019ve done that week, I realise it\u2019s very unlikely that the feeling is mutual when we discuss the upcoming season of Beth Rigby Interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just interviewed a guy called Festus [Akinbusoye] and Festus is the first Black Police Crime Commissioner in Bedfordshire. I just interviewed him today and that was fascinating. It was all about what it is like being a Black man and a Conservative. What was his view of knife crime? Why was it disproportionately happening to young Black men?\u201d<\/p>\n
From comedian David Baddiel to Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner, the chatty, bubbly TV presenter says that her team are picking guests that tell stories \u201crelevant to people but away from the [news] churn\u201d.<\/p>\n
A special Tue Beth Rigby Interviews with @AngelaRayner<\/a> – on Starmer\u2019s pledges, private provision in the NHS, on whether Lab\u2019s abandoned the left, and her own journey to the top of politics. Has the imposter syndrome the dep Lab leader spoke of in the past now gone? 9pm @skynews<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/rZgcKZ9y6I<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) January 10, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>