LAURA Kuenssberg is an award-winning journalist and the first woman to be appointed as political editor at the BBC.

She was given bodyguards after being targeted by sexist trolls, and has even been rocked by Twitter users calling for her to be sacked after accusing her of bias.

Who is Laura Kuenssberg?

Laura was born in Italy in 1976, while her dad, Nick Kuenssberg OBE, was working for British thread manufacturers the Coats Group.

She comes from a family of power – Laura's grandad was the German-born founder and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners (GPs), Dr Ekkehard von Kuenssberg.

While her granddad on her mum's side, Lord Roberton, was a High Court judge.

Laura grew up in Glasgow with her brother and diplomat sister Joanna Kuenssberg, who is the High Commissioner of the UK to Mozambique.

Joanna, who is three years older than Laura, was born in Lima, Peru, thanks to her dad's travelling job.

Laura went to Laurel Park School, an all-girls' private school, before doing a degree in history at University of Edinburgh.

She then left for Washington DC, USA, where Laura studied journalism before landing a job with NBC News.

Laura is married to management consultant James Kelly, who also studied at Edinburgh – as well as Harvard.

The couple live in East London.

How much does Laura earn?

Laura is listed as earning between £200,000 and £249,999 a year at The BBC.

When asked about her income by Radio Times, she responded: "I’m well rewarded for a job I massively enjoy doing. I think I’m paid very fairly."

After returning to Britain, Laura worked for local radio and cable TV channels in Glasgow – as well as did reporting work for Channel 4.

She then landed a job with BBC North East and Cumbria in March 2000.

Laura was later made the chief political correspondent for the Beeb, and led the channel's coverage of the May 2010 General Election and subsequent formation of David Cameron's Coalition Government.

In September 2011, Laura left the BBC for the newly created role as business editor with ITV News, and broadcast her first News at Ten segment in August 2013.

She returned to the BBC to present Newsnight in February 2014 – and was appointed as the political editor in July 2015, making her the first woman to have that role at the organisation.

She's been a voice of authority during Brexit – and backed up The Sun's bombshell front page which claimed the Queen has voiced Eurosceptic views.

Has Laura been involved in any controversy?

She has been accused of breaking electoral law by discussing supposed results of postal votes live on air.

Speaking to the BBC's Politics Live Laura Kuenssberg claimed to have received tip-offs from those with knowledge of early votes cast in the general election, during a discussion about poor weather impacting voter turnout.

She went on to describe what sources had told her about the results of postal ballots already counted.

In January 2016, Laura helped arrange for Labour MP Stephen Doughty to publicly announce his resignation as shadow foreign minister on the Daily Politics show.

The move prompted an official complaint from Seumas Milne, the Labour Party's director of communications, which was rejected by the BBC.

After the 2016 local elections, a petition on 38 Degrees accused Laura of being biased against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – and called for her dismissal.

It was later withdrawn by 38 Degrees, because of sexist and hateful comments made about the journo.

In January 2017, the BBC Trust ruled that Laura broke the broadcaster's impartiality and accuracy guidelines in an interview with Corbyn in November 2015.

It was said that Laura's News at Six segment was edited to wrongly give the impression that Corbyn disagreed with the use of firearms by police in incidents such as the Paris terror attacks.

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