Alastair Stewart will kick off a new chapter of his career this weekend thanks to the launch of new TV channel GB News.
The veteran news reader signed up to Andrew Neil’s project earlier this year – bagging the job as one of the main presenters on the start-up.
Alastair will host a news and current affairs show on weekends, putting him on the roster alongside a number of other well known names.
Other already established names joining GB News include the likes of Kirsty Gallacher, Simon McCoy, Andrew Neil and Colin Brazier.
Here we look back at Alastair’s impressive career spanning four decades, and his private family life.
ITV News at 10
(Image: ITV)
In 1989 Alastair joined ITV’s News at Ten.
He was the face of the nightly reports and led the majority of big news stories.
Staying loyal to ITV, he later switched up his career by hosting a range of news programmes for the channel.
Throughout his career he has hosted both the lunchtime and evening slots as well as remaining a familiar face on the 10 o’clock programme.
Quitting ITV amid Twitter fury
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
At the start of 2020 the veteran TV host left ITV amid reports of a “series of errors”.
The final catalyst was said to have been him being accused of “calling a black man an ape” on social media.
In a row about the taxpayer’s continuation to the crown and vice-versa, he used a quote from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
He wrote: “But man, proud man, Dress’d in a little brief authority Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d – His glassy essence—like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
“As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.”
He was defended by many of his colleagues at the time who insisted “he is certainly not a racist”.
In a statement, Alistair: “It was a misjudgement which I regret, but it’s been a privilege to bring the news to households throughout the UK for the past 40 years.”
GB News
(Image: Getty Images)
Alistair has vowed “not to walk on eggshells” when he returned to the small screen this month.
He is keen not to pander to political correctness
Teasing the new venture, he said: “Political correctness is not something to be adhered to. It is to be respected and broken through.
“I have a real thing about political correctness. It makes political discourse like walking on eggshells.
“You’re having a really good conversation with people, but it’s a public conversation, and people pick and choose their words so it’s not sexist, it’s not misogynist or this, that or the other.
“So long as you respect everybody, you can talk openly and freely. That’s what we will be doing at GB News.”
43-year-long marriage
(Image: Alan Davidson/REX/Shutterstock)
Alistair has been married for 43 years.
The OBE holder said “I do” with Sally Ann Jung in 1978 before they started a family in Hampshire.
The couple have owned a farm in the county since 1985.
They currently have four children together, Freddie, Clemmie, Oscar and Alexander.
At the time of Alastair’s ITV Twitter scandal, his daughter Clemmie shared a cryptic tweet which was thought to be about her father’s exit from ITV.
She wrote: “Silence is golden when words will be picked over like bones. Pictures however can capture a feeling so beautifully.”
Adding that she was thankful for the love she had received in the wake of his departure.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
