How Carol Vorderman spouting off on social media sealed her reputation as a political commentator - but ex-Countdown star's comments about Laura Kuenssberg, Tory 'gaslighting' and Jay Slater's disappearance have sparked controversy
It was an unlikely career trajectory for the presenter once best known for her speed with arithmetic on Channel 4's Countdown - but Carol Vorderman's reinvention as a political commentator is all but complete.
Vorderman, 63, went to war with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg at the weekend, accusing the veteran political journalist of bias during an interview with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey on her Sunday show.
Kuenssberg had qualified her congratulations to the Lib Dems for winning more than 70 seats with the phrase 'I suppose', prompting Vorderman to call for the BBC to replace her with fellow presenter Victoria Derbyshire.
Responding to the clip, the maths whizz had written on X: 'Vic D is exceptional and gives them all a hard time if that is what's needed. She knows her detail and cuts through with any bias. BBC is lucky to have her.'
And in the two days since that interview aired Vorderman has tweeted nothing but politics - praising Labour's new education secretary and congratulating the Lib Dems and the Greens on their new arrivals to Parliament.
Carol Vorderman appearing as a guest during Channel 4's general election coverage in which she tore into the Tories and gloated 'let's get the party started because they have gone'
Vorderman, 63, went to war with the BBC 's Laura Kuenssberg at the weekend, accusing the veteran political journalist of bias during an interview with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey
Vorderman said it was 'time for #bbclaurak to become #bbcVictoriaD don't you think?'
She has also suggested that the requirement for voters to carry ID, a policy brought in under the last Conservative government, may have disenfranchised 400,000 people.
And on LBC, where she presents a show after being axed by the BBC for refusing to stop tweeting her political views, Vorderman said she 'enjoyed' reading out the names of Tory MPs who lost their seats in the general election.
'Who'll be the next Tory leader? Who cares,' she wrote, ending the post with a crying laughing emoji. She says she is 'politically independent' in her X profile.
Vorders, as the tabloids call her, has been on a mission to bring down the Tories since the end of 2022, when she took to what was then Twitter to criticise Lady Mone for her involvement in the PPE Medpro scandal.
Lady Mone had, at the time, denied she would benefit from sales of PPE made by the firm to the government during the Covid pandemic. She and her husband Douglas Barrowman remain under investigation by the National Crime Agency.
Since then, Vorderman has turned her crosshairs onto the wider Tory party - blasting Rishi Sunak and his ministers across scores of anti-Tory tweets.
She called the government 'vile' and labelled the Conservatives 'entitled, arrogant...morally bankrupt' and 'gaslighting crooks' last November.
A year ago, she sparred with then veterans minister Johnny Mercer, who called her a 'deeply unpleasant person', and his wife Felicity, who said: 'You really do seem like a nasty person'.
Vorderman told of how she enjoyed herself reading out the names of the Tories who had lost their seats at the general election
Vorderman wears a 'Voting is hot AF' jumper and holds up a bag of Tyrrell's crisps as she leaves the Riverside Studios after filming Have I Got News For You on June 6
She called for then women's minister Maria Caulfield to resign after claiming she 'could not be bothered to turn up' to a committee discussion on menopause,
But her tweets have landed her in hot water on several occasions. Vorderman deleted a series of tweets about then-Tory party chairman Greg Hands in a row over PPE.
Mr Hands had called for her to apologise after she posted what he labelled 'defamatory and damaging' tweets about his involvement in a firm that was granted a PPE contract in 2020.
After removing the alleged offending posts, Vorderman said she was 'happy to accept Mr Hands' assurance that his role in the process was simply to refer the approach (to the government)... there was no impropriety on his part'.
Penny Morduant was another Tory who would targeted after she suggested bringing back national service.
Vorderman was quick to mock the former Commons Leader as she wrote: 'Bring Back National Service' cries Penny Mordaunt. What a pile of utter nonsense. She also spouts that Tories alone believe in personal responsibility and looking after others.
'WOW! Current Tories care only about themselves and their snouts in the troughs of power and money. FACT.'
And as she embarked on a new calling as a political firebrand, Vorderman found herself falling foul of BBC impartiality guidelines in her role as a presenter on BBC Radio Wales, where she had presented a Saturday morning show for five years.
It is not just her views in the political spectrum that have coveted controversy with Vorderman most recently sparking outrage for comparing Jay Slater's disappearance to the time she 'went missing'
Listeners fumed about her making the 19-year-old's disappearance 'all about me' as she recounted how she ran away when her Countdown host Richard Whiteley died in 2005
A rejig of BBC social media guidelines prevented Vorderman from remaining in her job while continuing to post anti-Tory rants - and she opted to fall on her sword last November.
'Despite my show being light-hearted with no political content, it was explained to me that, as it is a weekly show in my name, the new guidelines would apply to all and any content that I post all year round,' she said in a statement.
'Since those non-negotiable changes to my radio contract were made, I've ultimately found that I'm not prepared to lose my voice on social media.
'My decision has been to continue to criticise the current UK Government for what it has done to the country which I love - and I'm not prepared to stop. I was brought up to fight for what I believe in, and I will carry on.
'Consequently I have now breached the new guidelines and BBC Wales management have decided I must leave. We each must make our decisions.'
Two months later, 'politically independent' Vorderman signed with LBC - where she is free to express her views on the Tories.
And she is writing a book, entitled Now What?: On a Mission to Fix Broken Britain, which she is taking on tour in September. Live tour tickets run at £40 each, and include a copy of the book.
It is not just her views in the political spectrum that have coveted controversy with Vorderman most recently sparking outrage for her comments about the time she 'went missing' after mentioning Jay Slater's disappearance.
Listeners fumed about her making the 19-year-old's disappearance 'all about me' as she recounted how she ran away when her Countdown host Richard Whiteley died in 2005, aged 61.
Vorderman was close to tears as she told how she was racked with grief.
'Richard Whiteley died, and he died quite suddenly,' she said. 'Every day people would talk to me about him, even though I wasn't with him. There was a great love between us, and I couldn't cope, I just couldn't cope.'
The TV star said she 'just didn't know what to do' and with her children with her ex-husband for the weekend she 'just had to disappear'.
She engaged in a bitter Twitter feud with Tory MP and veteran's affairs minister Johnny Mercer and his wife Felicity last July
She accused the Tory party of being 'a lying bunch of greedy, corrupt, destructive, hateful, divisive, gaslighting crooks' when they were in Government
'I didn't want anyone I knew around me, I just got in my car and I drove,' she said.
'I eventually found a hotel and I didn't have anything with me.
'I had my purse, and just locked myself away then, switch my phone off, all of that. I just stayed in that room, just to get my thoughts together really.
'So I do understand when people say that that's their only option, I really do. There's no shame about it, that's why I'm telling this story for the first time. There's no shame, everyone has those moments, I believe, at some point.'
Her retelling of the story sparked angry comments, reported The Mirror, with one listener saying: 'I don't think this is the same unfortunately,' while another person angrily echoed: 'I don't think this is the same thing Carol!!??'
Another commented: '"How do I make this all about me?'' and "Me, me, me".'
Vorderman's representatives declined to comment when approached by MailOnline.
