Jeremy Vine

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Jeremy Vine (born May 17, 1965, Epsom, Surrey) is an English current affairs presenter on BBC radio and television. He is the older brother of comedian Tim Vine.

Vine was educated at Epsom College in Surrey and Durham University (Hatfield College), graduating with a first-class degree in English. He went on to a journalism training course with the Coventry Evening Telegraph before joining the BBC in 1987.

His career at the BBC included reading the news on radio in Northern Ireland and working as a researcher on the BBC1 religious-affairs series Heart of the Matter. In 1989 he became a regular reporter on the Radio 4 programme Today, filing reports from across Europe, from Ireland to Siberia.

While working for Today, he published two comic novels set amid the modern Church of England, Forget Heaven, Just Kiss Me (1992) and The Whole World In My Hands (1993). They were not very successful and Vine now regards them as juvenilia.

In the mid-1990s he became familiar to BBC TV viewers as a political reporter, reporting on the modernisation of the Labour Party and later making a mark with his irreverent reports on the 1997 General Election. He is known for his direct and some would say abrasive interview style.

He became a regular presenter of BBC2's Newsnight in 1999, and was one of the original presenters of Broadcasting House on Radio 4. After several stints as a stand-in for Jimmy Young on Radio 2 in 2001-2002, he took over the lunchtime show permanently in January 2003, though there was initially some controversy when it emerged that Young had not retired voluntarily as had originally been claimed.Vine made certain changes to the format, most obviously taking telephone callers on air in addition to simply reading out comments. The regular Thursday food slot was dropped, and the Monday health and Friday legal advice slots were revamped into, respectively, "The Health and Wellbeing Hour" (usually with either Dr Sarah Jarvis or Rabbi Julia Neuberger) and "Your Money and Your Life" (with a variety of contributors, most frequently Martin Lewis). Friday's shows frequently include a link-up to gardener Terry Walton at "The Official Jeremy Vine Show Allotment", and Lucy Berry was the show's in-house poet until October 2006.

Vine is one of the most prominent openly Christian broadcasters in the UK and has also presented numerous religious-themed programmes for the BBC. His regular programme addresses all manner of current affairs subjects - usually letting listeners take the lead as the facts are pulled together. It receives thousands of emails, calls and texts every day.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005 Vine won the best speech broadcaster award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards and was announced as Peter Snow's replacement for presenting the BBC election graphics, including the famous Swingometer, from May 2006.

Vine also presented The Politics Show on BBC1 from its launch in 2003 until Jon Sopel took over in 2005.

From January 2007, Vine became the presenter of the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Panorama, to coincide with the show's move back to a Monday peak-time slot.

[edit] Trivia

Jeremy is the brother of comedian Tim Vine. In a radio interview in 2004 when asked what he thought of his brother's profession Jeremy shocked the listeners by replying "It's a fucking disgrace".