Quick Facts
Biography
Bernard Ponsonby is a Scottish broadcast journalist working on regional news and current affairs programming for STV. He joined the station in 1990 and was appointed political editor in 2000, following the retirement of longstanding political editor Fiona Ross.
Political career
Ponsonby stood for the Liberal Democrats – then styled as the "Democrats" – in the 1988 Glasgow Govan by-election, losing his deposit with a 4.1% share of the vote. He became the party's press officer following that. Since the party had only recently formed after a merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, Ponsonby was the party's first ever candidate to stand in a parliamentary election.
For seven years, Ponsonby presented Scottish Television's political programme Platform. Currently, he reports and provides political commentary for all three editions of the station's flagship regional news programme, STV News at Six, in the North, East and West of Scotland. He has also contributed to the weekly political programme Politics Now, for which he became presenter in January 2009, until the programme's end in 2011. He now commentates on the replacement programme Scotland Tonight.
He has presented all of STV's election, by-election and elections results programmes in the last ten years, and was the lead presenter in that station's coverage of the 1997 general election, the 1997 devolution referendum, the Scottish Parliamentary elections of 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011, and the British general elections of 2001 and 2010.
He co-presented the political programme Scottish Questions (1992–93), was the lead presenter on Scottish Voices (1994–95), co-presented Trial By Night (1993–96) and more recently, Seven Days (2000–2001).
In terms of documentary output, he has made several programmes in the Scottish Reporters series and produced two political documentaries (The Dewar Years and The Salmond Years) on two of Scotland's most influential politicians of the postwar period.
In 2002, Ponsonby was arrested for drunk driving and convicted of being over three times the legal drink limit.
In May 2009, Ponsonby became the first journalist in the UK to report the resignation of the speaker of the House of Commons and Glasgow North East MP, Michael Martin – the first speaker to be forced from office since 1695. Ponsonby is an avid film fan and frequents the Cineworld chain of cinemas in Parkhead Glasgow.
On 5 August 2014, Ponsonby moderated Salmond & Darling: The Debate, the first head-to-head televised debate between First Minister Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling ahead of the forthcoming Scottish independence referendum.
The Prime Minister's office refused to allow Ponsonby to interview David Cameron on STV about the Scottish independence referendum, according to a report in The Scotsman.