Carol Vorderman: Abuse from trolls is my ‘oxygen’ and shows me I’m ‘doing something right’

You might think Carol Vorderman would be affected by the sheer amount of online abuse she’s subjected to, but no – instead, she says: “I quite enjoy it.”

Over the past few years, the former Countdown star has become increasingly vocal about politics online, regularly criticising the previous Conservative government – making her a bit of a target for those who don’t agree with her strong opinions.

Her new book, Now What? On A Mission To Fix Broken Britain, opens with some of the startling things public figures have said about her – including this post on X, where former Tory MP Marco Longhi calls her: “A person who obviously has bitterness, arrogance and envy in her heart. There’s no amount of plastic surgery or Botox that will cure that.”

But does criticism – from public figures and online trolls – bother Vorderman? Not in the slightest.

“I quite enjoy it – they don’t realise, bless them, the trolls, that they’re a bit of my oxygen,” she says.

“It’s like when the Tories came after me, I knew I was doing something right – so I’ll carry on, because that’s the way I’m built. I won’t shy away from it. Most of the responses from trolls are misogynistic or abusive – there’s no argument, there’s no debate based on fact. It’s just abuse, bless them.”

After years in the public eye – presenting on Loose Women and BBC Radio Wales, and appearing on reality shows like Strictly Come Dancing, and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! – Vorderman says she published her first political post on X (formerly Twitter) in November 2022. It was about Baroness Michelle Mone, who faced controversy over the so-called “VIP lane” contracts granted to some PPE suppliers during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s all detailed in her new book, along with a diary of her increased political activism from the end of December 2022 up until the recent election.

To understand why Bath-based Vorderman, 63, decided to dive head first into politics, she says it’s important to know her background growing up in North Wales.

She was “brought up in poverty, a free school meals kid from the northwest – everything going against you back in those times,” she explains. “But for whatever reason, people gave me opportunities, and I’m a grafter, a natural workaholic” – so Vorderman says she’s been able to do things that “99% of people aren’t”.

This means she feels “a sense of responsibility” to speak out. “I have a great anger at how the working class – which is where I’m from – get treated, how they’re sidelined.

“Even in television, only 10% of people who work in telly and the film industry are what you would say from the working class. So everything goes through this filter of middle-class values. That’s why social media is great… People think you’re talking in their language. And it’s difficult for people who are from the upper-middle class to recognise that, because you are what you’re from.

“To not know where a meal is coming from – I haven’t had to do that as an adult, but absolutely we did as children. Those things never leave you… They certainly haven’t left me.”

Vorderman says working on construction sites in the 1970s with her stepfather means she’s now “hardened to stuff” – so a bit of online trolling doesn’t phase her.

And she describes feeling “free” after sending that first political post. “Social media meant I didn’t have to go through the filter of an editor anymore. It’s not that I didn’t care – that’s not true – I felt as though I’d found my voice. I could present facts and evidence and data as I felt it – I was my own editor, and in that way I felt freer.”

Vorderman isn’t unappreciative of the career she has had so far, but she’s aware of the new platform social media has provided her.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful, I’ve been very, very lucky. I’m one of the few of my age group who’s been around since they were in their 20s. There are women my age on the telly, but they haven’t been on network telly for 40 years – some have, but very few, and I’m one of those few. So I’ve lived through the sexism, the ageism, every other ‘ism’ – fattism, thinism, whatever.”

“I call myself an old bird with an iPhone, which is what I am – it’s literally just me screenshotting stuff. I don’t have a team of people or a newsroom to fall back on – and I’m fascinated by that, because one of my big things is about communicating information. That’s what’s always driven me, whether it’s science programs, tech programs, or whatever it might be.”

She’s inspired to bridge the “massive disconnect” between politicians and people in power, with the working classes – but her newfound activism hasn’t come without its issues.

Last year, Vorderman said BBC management had decided she should give up her Saturday-morning show on Radio Wales over a breach of social media guidelines, which state that anyone working at the corporation is banned from making attacks on political parties. Did she know she was going to lose her job as a result of speaking out?

“No,” Vorderman, who now hosts a Sunday show on LBC radio, says simply. “I plan, but I don’t plan that well. I am, by my nature, a person who goes on an adventure – and when I go into something, I go boots and all. As my children will tell you, I don’t do things by half measures.

“So I go all in, and what I’ve particularly enjoyed about the last two years is it’s got my brain going again and digging into things. You see it from a clearer perspective, particularly when you have nothing to lose – well, nothing to gain.

“I’m not in it for any gain, and when you go into anything like that, without ego, there isn’t a part of you that’s thinking, ‘What can I get out of this in any shape or form’. As you know, I was sacked. And I think people sense that, many go, ‘Well, she’s obviously not doing it for herself’ – and that isn’t so common nowadays.”

But one thing that hasn’t changed is Vorderman’s commitment to her work.

“I’ve always been the same – I’m a workaholic. I think they should have group sessions for that. I’d be first on: My name is Carol Vorderman, and I’m a workaholic,” she jokes.

“It’s been my pattern all the way through my life, is I work, work, work, work, work, then I ‘collapse’. That’s very much in inverted commas. But in the past, about every 10 years, it’s led to some kind of heart issue or something like that.

“So as you get older – I’ll be 64 in December – you have to be a little bit more careful. I haven’t been remotely careful over the last two years in terms of the amount of work, but I will have to look at that. I just get so passionate about it – that’s the thing.”

Now What: On A Mission To Fix Broken Britain by Carol Vorderman is hardback by Headline. Available now. Vorderman will discuss the book at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on September 21st.