Gavin William James Esler (born 27 February 1953) is a Scottish journalist, television presenter and author. He was a main presenter on BBC Two's flagship political analysis programme, Newsnight, from January 2003 until January 2014, and presenter of BBC News at Five on the BBC News Channel. From 2014 to 2023 he served as the Chancellor of the University of Kent. On 11 March 2017, Esler confirmed via his Twitter profile that he would be leaving the BBC at the end of the month to concentrate on his writing activities. He returned to the BBC later that year as host of Talking Books.
He stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for Change UK in London at the 2019 European Parliament election.
Esler was born in Glasgow on 27 February 1953, the first son born to a manager of a building company. During his first weeks, he suffered from a condition that made him unable to digest milk and his parents feared for his life. He had an operation at just three weeks old. His family lived in Clydebank before they moved to Edinburgh, where he began his education at Duddingston Primary School before gaining a scholarship to George Heriot's School at the age of seven.
His Scottish childhood had a profound and long-lasting effect on him. His parents moved to Northern Ireland but he remained in Edinburgh. Esler was the first in his family to go to university, graduating at the University of Kent with a BA in English and American literature in 1974. Alongside his studies he also wrote for Incant, the university newspaper. He then gained an MA in Anglo-Irish literature with distinction from the University of Leeds.
Esler began working as a journalist in 1976, aged 23, as a junior reporter with the Belfast Telegraph.
He joined the BBC in 1977 as Northern Ireland reporter, working under Bernard Cornwell, and extended his role after joining Newsnight in 1982. Esler was appointed Washington correspondent in 1989 and then, a year later, became the BBC's chief North America correspondent. Based in Washington, Esler's responsibilities now extended to shaping the corporation's coverage across the whole of North America, which included reporting on both the earlier George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations. Esler has also reported for news and documentary programmes across Europe, Russia, China and North and South America.
Esler combined reporting with presenting from the mid-1980s on BBC One's regional news programme for London and the South East of England – Newsroom South East. He worked as an anchor on the BBC News channel (at the time known as "BBC News 24") from its outset in 1997 and co-presented its prime-time slot with Sian Williams for several years.
In January 2003, he joined Newsnight, replacing Jeremy Vine, who had left to take over from Sir Jimmy Young on Radio 2. During his career Esler has interviewed heads of state and government including Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac and King Abdullah II of Jordan. He has also interviewed a wide range of cultural figures, including Dolly Parton, Doris Lessing, Penélope Cruz, Angelina Jolie, V. S. Naipaul, Roger Waters, Vikram Seth and Seamus Heaney. Esler left Newsnight in January 2014, and was replaced by Laura Kuenssberg.
In 2005, Esler interviewed George Galloway on Newsnight about the London bombings. The BBC was reported to have received hundreds of complaints about his interview alleging his questioning was "rude and aggressive". Peter Barron, editor of Newsnight, defended the questioning of Galloway's tactics:
The thrust of Gavin's questioning was to ask if it was wise to express these (Galloway's) provocative views – effectively 'I told you so' – at a time when many politicians and Muslim leaders had been appealing for calm. I believe that was a fair and appropriate line of questioning.
In 2007 a BBC Trust publication investigating impartiality in the organisation criticised an unnamed BBC news presenter for writing an article in the Daily Mirror newspaper entitled "Why the World Needs Hillary", stating they had been "unwise" for doing so. The article appeared to endorse Hillary Clinton to be the next US President and it soon emerged that the news presenter in question was Esler. The BBC report noted that "the apparent endorsement of one presidential candidate in elections in a country which, in his words, 'now seems seriously off
course' could make it hard for that presenter to conduct American political interviews".
Until 2017, Esler was the main presenter of Dateline London on BBC News and BBC World News most Sunday mornings at 11 am. Between 2008 and 2017, he also presented the BBC News at Five on the BBC News channel on Fridays and when Huw Edwards was away. Esler has also hosted BBC Radio 4 factual series Four Corners along with fellow Scottish broadcaster Anne MacKenzie. He had a regular slot on Saturdays and Sundays, working across BBC World, BBC News and BBC One, and co-presented the regular Film Review with Mark Kermode.
On 11 March 2017, Esler confirmed via his Twitter profile that he would be leaving the BBC to concentrate on his writing activities. The Film Review was presented by other presenters although he continued to present Dateline London. He returned on 31 March 2017 to present his final BBC News at Five and Film Review. He returned to the BBC later that year as host of Talking Books.
Since 2021 Esler has been a regular presenter and contributor to the political podcast The Bunker.. Since 2023 he has presented the podcast This Is Not A Drill.
Esler is the author of five novels and four non-fiction books. The novel A Scandalous Man was described by fellow author Bernard Cornwell as "a compelling book, its political sophistication made luminous with wisdom, sympathy and story telling". His fifth novel, Powerplay, was published by HarperCollins in August 2009. Esler's first non-fiction book, The United States of Anger published in October 1997 by Penguin, explores America's discontent with itself and was described by the New Statesman as "a vivid portrait of America in the 1990s". Esler's 2019 book Brexit Without the Bullshit discusses some of the potential consequences of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. For several years he also wrote regular columns for The Scotsman, The Independent and other publications..
Esler's most recent book, How Britain Ends - English Nationalism and the Re-birth of Four Nations, was published in February 2021 and in which Esler claims a resurgent English nationalism is pulling the United Kingdom apart.
In August 2018, Esler spoke at a People's Vote rally in Edinburgh. People's Vote is a campaign group calling for a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union. On 23 April 2019, he was announced as a candidate for Change UK in London in the May 2019 European Parliament election. The party announced its intention to stop Brexit and pursue a second referendum on membership of the EU. It gained 3.4% of the vote nationally and failed to win any seats. In London the party achieved 5.3% of the vote, but this was only just over half of the number required for Esler as lead candidate to win the 8th and last seat under the d'Hondt system of proportional representation used in the election.