Do we like Mary Berry?
Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or company turned up, and there's decades of charity work and teaching on telly, with only a mild old tut-tut moment against her.
Mary Berry's career starts small. Her family got its first black-and-white telly when she was ten, with the BBC the only channel. She credited a domestic science teacher for setting her on her path, and her first programme was Collector's World in 1971, where she cooked a cow's udder pie.
From there it's a very long arc: more than 50 years in the job, and Bake Off changing her life along the way. At the BAFTAs she said she sees herself as a teacher and that television is “the best and the biggest classroom that there is.” She also said she's still learning, and that kindness, patience and respect are essential.
Scandals are thin on the ground. The biggest on-air stoush was in 2018, when Classic Mary Berry viewers accused her on Twitter of being rude to guest chef Nathan Outlaw, after she reacted with a “You, windsurfing?!” comment. The report found no response from her, and it's a mild tut-tut moment, not a pattern.
On the harm check, we found nothing nasty. No harmful words about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the planet turned up in the sources we read, and no dodgy company. That's an honest gap as much as a clean sheet, because she's not a political commentator and the public record on those topics is thin.
Her faith is part of her public story, and she keeps it fairly private. She told Woman Alive it's “just part of my life,” and she attends a village church most Sundays. She's been a patron of Child Bereavement UK since 2008, and she joined Bear Grylls and former Archbishop Justin Welby on an effort to get the Bible to children.
So: would we support her? Yes. She's a warm, long-serving teacher of cooks who uses her platform for charity and the public broadcaster, not for culture-war grievance. We'd just like a bit more on record about LGBTQ+ issues, and we'll say so.