Mishal Husain has her work cut out tonight as she hosts the seven-way live BBC Election Debate with representatives of all the major UK political parties.
But the 51-year-old is well used to calling out politicians - indeed, she's already locked horns with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage this week.
Journalist and radio presenter Mishal has had a long and glittering career, starting at the age of 18 when she spent three months in Pakistan's Islamabad working as a city reporter for The News. She was the first Muslim presenter to host Radio 4's prestigious Today programme when she joined in 2013 alongside John Humphries.
During that time she's also presented the BBC News at Ten, News at Six, the Andrew Marr Show, BBC Breakfast and Impact, as well as HARDtalk.
There's a little showbiz in her DNA - her Pakistani mother worked as a producer for Pakistan Television Corporation, while her father was a urologist. Mishal was born in Northampton but lived abroad in Saudi Arabia for a period in her childhood, where she was educated at the fee-paying British School in Abu Dhabi. Long hot summers were spent in Pakistan and have given her a useful grounding in the politics of that country.
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When the family returned to the UK, Mishal continued her schooling at the independent Cobham Hall School in Kent before winning a place at Cambridge to study law. Her education was rounded off with a master's degree in international and comparative law at the European University Institute in Florence.
Is Mishal Husain married?
Mishal married funds lawyer Meekal Hashmi in 2003, and together they share three sons - their eldest is 17 and their twins are 15. Mishal has spoken before about juggling her growing family with work, describing her husband as "a good human being" who was willing to get stuck in with childcare when their boys were small.
In her 2018 book The Skills about getting ahead at work, Mishal admitted her work-life balance was easier than most "because I married a man who pulls his weight at home, my children have been blessed with good health, and I have been able to afford childcare".
She went on: "But with three children, 20 months apart, there was still plenty to grapple with. I was filming a documentary in India when all three boys and their father came down with chicken pox, and there was hassle that I unnecessarily brought upon myself: doing the online supermarket shop from Beijing because I realised the house was perilously close to running out of nappies."
Mishal Husain's clash with Farage
Mishal Husain put Nigel Farage on the spot earlier this week (BBC)Tonight, Mishal will host deputies and senior politicians from each of the seven major political parties. Labour's Angela Rayner will take on the Conservatives' Penny Mordaunt - current Leader of the Commons - Daisy Cooper of the Liberal Democrats, Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, Stephen Flynn for the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth.
Joining them will be Nigel Farage, who at the beginning of the week performed the world's least secret U-turn when he announced a return to frontline politics and a bid to secure the Clacton seat in Essex.
The day after his announcement, he and Mishal clashed live on the Today programme over Reform's pledge to freeze immigration from non-essential sectors. Mishal asked whether architects, midwives, butchers and bakers, among other occupations, would be permitted to come to the UK under his party's strict plans.
In response, Farage snapped, "in limited numbers", before suggesting Mishal's line of questioning was "really getting rather silly". But the host kept her cool and forensically grilled the right-wing politician on the exact number of immigrants Reform would be happy with. "Net zero," he finally confirmed.
Swearing live on air
Home Secretary James Cleverly was left squirming as Mishal swore repeatedly live on air in January (TWITTER)In January this year, Mishal took on Home Secretary James Cleverly and made him squirm as she grilled him on a series of blunders and gaffes he'd made.
Mr Cleverly previously insisted he did not “remember” describing the Tory Rwanda deportation plan as “bats**t”. He'd also denied describing Stockton as a "s***hole" - but apologised for calling a Labour MP "s**t". Labour's Alex Cunningham alleged Mr Cleverly had described his north-east constituency as a "sh**hole" in the Commons.
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Speaking to the Home Secretary, Ms Husain mentioned "the time it was reported that you call a government policy bats**t" as well as the "person or place you referred to in Parliament as a s**thole". Mr Clevery immediately said: "No I didn't," before Ms Husain asked: "You didn't use the word s**thole in Parliament?"
After blustering through the next few minutes of the car-crash interview, Mr Cleverly ended by claiming his parliamentary colleagues couldn't have heard a different word from the one he'd apparently said, because: "That's not how science works."
*Watch the Election Debate live tonight from 7.30pm on BBC One
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