JEREMY Paxman has revealed how he would vote in a referendum on Scottish independence.
“Although I am a quarter Scottish I would vote to separate,” said the former Newsnight anchor.
“My view about the Union is that if there is to be a referendum then the English should be allowed a vote as well. We are supposedly a nation of equals, so we should be equally entitled to a vote,” he told the Sunday Times.
On backing separation, he said: “I can’t see what is gained by persistently giving the Jocks an excuse. We’re always going to be friends.”
READ MORE: How did Glasgow do on University Challenge?
Paxman, 71, revealed in May that he has Parkinson’s. Asked how he was faring, he said: “It’s the unpredictability that gets me. Sometimes you feel awake, sometimes you feel asleep, and how you are today is no guide to how you will be tomorrow.
“It’s really annoying. I find myself very tired a lot of the time. Parkinson’s is incurable, so you are stuck with it. And that is hard. Very hard to know you are not going to get better. You hope you will, but you don’t.”
The University Challenge quizmaster spoke to the paper to mark the publication of his latest book, Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain.
READ MORE: Paxman diagnosed with Parkinson's
Paxman’s Scottish roots were unearthed when he took part in the BBC genealogy series, Who Do You Think You Are in 2006. His great grandmother was Mary Mackay, a charwoman who lived in Glasgow. Paxman wept on learning she had died from TB and exhaustion.
"Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people must have lived like this and died like this, and I suppose when it's just numbers like that it doesn't really mean anything, but it means something when . . . I don't know these people; I wouldn't recognise them if I fell over them, but you know I'm connected to them."
Black Gold, out September 30, William Collins, £25.
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