[AaronTV]

To be honest, I seem to recall most of the comparisons that were drawn were about Victoria being a more competent and challenging interviewer than their respective abilities to wrap the programme up on time.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but I think the suggestion that Laura randomly changes the program’s ending time on a whim and is able to do demonstrated how ridiculous some of the criticism was becoming. 

It’s clearly going to be an unpopular opinion here, but I do not believe Victoria Derbyshire would have been a good choice for the Sunday morning slot. 

Derbyshire’s aggressive and combative style is fine for Newsnight, but it’s certainly not right for Sunday mornings on BBC One in my opinion. You can ask challenging questions and remain firm without doing so in the way that Derbyshire does. It’s actually more of a skill to be able to do that (like Susanna Reid, for example); anybody can get aggressive and confrontational. 

I think it’s also worth remembering that Derbyshire’s BBC Two/News Channel show was a bit of a disaster ratings wise, and Newsnight is now facing the chop amidst dwindling ratings. Clearly that’s not Derbyshire’s fault entirely, but it does suggest her style does not have mass appeal. 

Laura had a pretty difficult job taking over from Andrew Marr - an incredibly well known, liked and respected broadcaster. It had the potential to be a real disaster if they’d have got it wrong. To have retained all of Marr’s audience, and increased digital consumption, is a real achievement. 

Would Derbyshire have done the same? Frankly, I’m not convinced.