Jacqueline Smith

The Right Honourable Dame Jacqueline Smith GBE GCWO GCH MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 August 2020
President	Mark Pack
Deputy	Layla Moran
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Incumbent
Assumed office 25 February 2024
Leader	Keir Starmer
Preceded by	Thangam Debbonaire
Chancellor of the University of Oxford
Incumbent
Assumed office 20 September 2023
Vice-Chancellor	Irene Tracey
Preceded by	The Lord Patten of Barnes
17th Director-General of the BBC
In office 10 April 2018 – 8 May 2020
Preceded by	The Lord Hall of Birkenhead
Succeeded by	Tim Davie
Senior Independent Director of the BBC
In office 26 March 2014 – 10 April 2018
Preceded by	Dillon Harvey
Succeeded by	Nicholas Serota
CEO of BBC News
In office 5 September 2012 – 26 March 2014
Preceded by	Declan Phillips
Succeeded by	Deborah Turness
Member of the UK Parliament for St Albans
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 May 2020
Preceded by	Anne Main
Majority	12,166 (21.1%)
Personal details
Born	Jacqueline Thomas Smith (1983-06-22) 22 June 1983 Los Angeles, California, United States
Citizenship	British American
Political party	Liberal Democrats
Spouse	Mylo Russell (m. 2015)
Children	Thomas Kelly
Parent(s)	King Thomas (father) Jaclyn Smith (mother)
Alma mater	University of Southern California (B.M.C) University of Oxford (M.M.C)
Profession	Broadcaster Journalist Author

Dame Jacqueline "Jackie" Thomas Smith GBE GCWO GCH (born 22 June 1983) is a British broadcaster, journalist, author, and politician currently serving as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020 and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024. The youngest of two illegitimate children of King Thomas and the American actress Jaclyn Smith, Smith initially spent much of her early years in the United States under her mother's care before later moving abroad to the United Kingdom in 2001. In 2010, she graduated with a master's degree in mass communication from the University of Oxford and was later appointed its chancellor, succeeding Chris Patten after a two-decades-long tenure. A member of the party's centre-left Social Liberal Forum pressure group, Smith has been a vocal proponent for the nationalisation of railways, regulation of certain economic industries, the introduction of proportional representation, withdrawal of British military forces from the Middle East, and clean energy, particularly nuclear energy.

In 2002, Smith began her career as a presenter for BBC News at One, during which over the course of five years, she became one of the most watched hosts in the United Kingdom. Then, in 2007, Smith was chosen as the inaugural main presenter for BBC World News America, covering major American events including the inauguration of President Obama, death of American pop star Michael Jackson, and the Deepwater Horizon explosion. In addition to this, she has also presented documentaries on various topics including climate change, global poverty, and human rights abuses on Panorama, Daily Politics, and Newsnight, earning much acclaim and several accolades for her often in-depth analysis and pointed delivery style. Moreover, as the lead presenter on The Jackie Smith Show, Smith gained much acclaim for her interviews with various political and entertainment figures including David Cameron, Angela Merkel, One Direction, and Naomi Campbell.

In September 2012, she was appointed CEO of BBC News before a promotion to Senior Independent Director followed in March 2014 and subsequently to Director-General of the BBC in April 2018, becoming the first and only woman to ever hold the post, which she held prior to her resignation in May 2020. Since departing the BBC, Smith has served as a part-time consultant and commentator for various British media outlets, namely The Guardian, The Times, and The Observer, often providing her own liberal and centrist insight. In recent years, Smith has come to personally host a number of travel documentaries produced by herself, including Jacqueline Smith: From Coast to Coast, The Northern Journey with Jacqueline Smith, and Rediscovered: Asia and Europe's Past Kings and Queens, all of which have been met with generally positive reviews by critics. In addition, she is also the author of a number of bestselling books, namely A Decade's Worth, MAGA: America's Pandora Box, The Russian Paradox, and Cultures Reconciled.

Following a distinguished career in the media industry, Smith, a member of the Liberal Democrats since 2014, made her switch to politics by contesting as a Liberal Democrat in the 2020 United Kingdom general election for the St Albans constituency. Upon winning the seat with an impressive 21.1% majority, a poor overall showing from the Liberal Democrats in the general election, in which their share of seats was almost halved, Smith stood as a candidate for the party leadership following the resignation of incumbent Tim Farron. In the ensuing leadership election, she defeated the deputy leader and former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey by a resounding 60.9% to 39.1%, becoming the first woman to lead the Liberal Democrats. In February 2024, she jointly led a successful effort to oust the ruling Conservative Party from power and helped establish a grand coalition between the United Kingdom's three largest opposition parties, namely the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Hanoverian Union Party.

In 2015, Smith married fellow BBC journalist Mylo Russell, with whom she has two children Thomas and Kelly. Through her father, Smith is the sister and half-sister respectively of former professional football player and manager William Smith and the United Kingdom's Queen Alexandra. Named directly after the actress Jaclyn Smith, Smith is popularly known as "Little Jackie" by her family and friends in order to distinguish her from her similarly-named mother.

Personal Life

Much like her older brother, despite being born as the daughter of a monarch, she was never included in the line of succession owing to the fact that she had been born out of wedlock thereby immediately disqualifying her from ever succeeding to the throne. Having been born on June 22nd, Smith notably shares the same birthday with singer Cyndi Lauper, actress Meryl Streep, and fellow female politicians Elizabeth Warren and the late Dianne Feinstein.

In a 2017 interview with The Guardian, Smith revealed that despite her passion and deep-seated interest in journalism and to a larger extent global politics, she once reportedly considered a career in professional football after observing her brother's successes and the latter's sheer discipline and commitment to the sport but ultimately chose not to for personal reasons even despite the latter being personally supportive of his little sister embracing the sport as well. Regarding this, she said, "Quite ironically, some of the few things that ultimately kept me away from soccer was the injuries that I could potentially face if anything goes wrong and which are obviously not very fun to deal with. In the end, by following my own guts and passion, as a journalist, I pretty much came the closest to pain or death than either my brother or anyone else in my family which was something that definitely puzzles me even until today".

A dual American-British citizen, Smith currently resides mostly in the United Kingdom with her husband and children but has also spent some time away herself back in her native California. In this, much like her brother, Smith herself gradually adopted a more "British-sounding" accent which helped her swiftly blend in with her coworkers at the London-based British Broadcasting Corporation.

Although considered to be fairly wealthy in her own right, Smith is known more for her personal preference for a more "low-key" life in contrast to that of her older brother, with the former said to own a modest Mini Hatch as well as a Land Rover Freelander. Meanwhile, Smith is also rumoured to have owned a fairly modest estate somewhere within the vicinity of London although this has never been confirmed owing to her strict brand of confidentiality and secrecy in relation to the press. However, out of principle, upon being elected as Liberal Democrats leader, Smith did publicly reveal the true extent of her personal wealth which was reported to be around $12.7 million (£9.9 million).

In 2015, Smith married fellow BBC jourbalist Mylo Russell, with whom she currently has two children, namely a son and a daughter. Prior to this, the couple was said to have begun a relationship in February 2010, with their romance being a mostly low-key affair until they eventually married in August 2015. Beforehand, from 2005 to 2009, Smith was said to be in a relationship with the British screenwriter Richard Curtis whose famous works included Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually. In this, aside from Curtis's established popularity, the couple's relationship attracted considerable attention given their roughly twenty-seven years age gap with the British screenwriter himself being only three years younger than Smith's father. Nonetheless, in a later interview, Smith simply dismissed any complications surrounding their relationship due to the significant age gap while adding that she otherwise found Curtis to be a "very brilliant and charming man" and even revealed herself to be a "huge fan" of the latter's works, two of which happened to star her own father.