Carol Vorderman could not be accused of wasting any time. The day after the erstwhile star of Countdown quit her weekly BBC Radio Wales show, saying she would “not be silenced” by the corporation’s new social media guidelines, she got down to business.
Within the space of a few hours on Thursday, Vorderman used her preferred social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to celebrate Sayeeda Warsi “blasting many Tories”, accuse the Department for Work and Pensions of “controlling behaviour”, take a pop at the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, reflect that the NHS’s record waiting list meant “yet another Sunak promise lies in tatters”, and delight that the Conservatives and the home secretary, Suella Braverman, were struggling in the polls.
On Wednesday, Vorderman had said she respected the BBC’s social media guidelines but was “not prepared to lose my voice on social media, change who I am, or lose the ability to express the strong beliefs I hold about the political turmoil this country finds itself in”.
And 24 hours later there was an impishness about the posts that suggested a personality unleashed. She appeared unruffled by BBC Wales’s decision that she “must leave” after she continued to express forthright opinions – often lambasting the current government – following a change in the BBC’s social media guidelines in September.
Vorderman’s transition from Countdown’s queen of mental arithmetic to daytime television national treasure to one of Britain’s most vociferous voices of discontent is, one suspects, now complete.
With close to 900,000 followers on X and a regular, albeit less frequent in recent months, slot on ITV’s This Morning, the 62-year-old has become a significant campaigning voice on issues ranging from personal protective equipment (PPE) and the conduct of the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, the prime minister’s finances and the menopause.
“She’s honest and she says exactly what she thinks,” says Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP for Swansea East and a prominent menopause campaigner, adding that she has never seen Vorderman refuse to have a photograph or give an autograph when in public.
“She got to the stage in her life where she doesn’t feel she has to toe the line. And it comes from no other place than the need to call out things that she knows are wrong. Carol Vorderman doesn’t need to promote Carol Vorderman, she’s done very well.”
Vorderman, who has referred to the current government as “a lying bunch of greedy, corrupt, destructive, hateful, divisive, gaslighting crooks”, has previously described herself as a political neutral. In 2009, she headed up a maths taskforce for David Cameron and before that toured schools and observed maths lessons with Tony Blair.
“I’ve got nothing to apologise for, so I live without apology. And where I feel a sense of right or wrong – as opposed to right or left – I call it out,” she has said.
She learned to be tough from an early age. In 2011, she revealed in the Guardian that she had been brought up by her mother in north Wales – not meeting her estranged father, who had been having an affair with a 16-year-old while her mother was pregnant, until she was in her 40s – and had lived a “hand to mouth” childhood.
She became a new type of female role model – poised, arch and impressively intelligent – when she joined the Channel 4 gameshow Countdown in 1982. Her mother, to whom she was very close, reportedly sent in her daughter’s application to the show, saying she had both “brains and beauty”. A woman who thrived in a distinctly male environment, Vorderman refused to be taken for granted, leaving the show after 26 years, reportedly after the channel tried to reduce her salary.
With stints on Loose Women, Have I Got News For You, Strictly Come Dancing and various I’m a Celebrity … shows, she has continued to dance to the beat of her own drum. Twice divorced, Vorderman risked giving Gyles Brandreth a hernia on ITV’s This Morning last year, as she declared a lack of interest in traditional monogamy , saying she preferred to maintain a roster of “special friends” with benefits.
As she cut ties with the BBC this week, to the delight of her fans – and irritation of her detractors – she promised on X to “increase calling out this disgusting Tory govt with facts & data which the rightwing media fails to publish”.
In an Instagram reel on Thursday night, an apparently elated Vorderman thanked everyone who had supported her, adding: “We can dismantle this despicable Tory party between us and we will. I’ll tell you more soon. I think you’ll like the plan.”
