Nigella Lawson is the wrong choice for Great British Bake Off judge

After nine years as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, Prue Leith announced last week that she was stepping down.

From the moment Prue confirmed her departure, the speculation about who might take over immediately took hold, with fan-favourite TV chef Nigella Lawson fast becoming the frontrunner.

When I saw that Nigella was confirmed as the new host of the Great British Bake Off, my heart sank.

There was a clear and obvious choice for Prue’s replacement and that wasn’t Nigella

No doubt she’ll do a perfectly fine job, but with a long-established TV career, and (although younger than Prue and Mary) still a veteran in the cooking industry, it’s hardly the shake-up the show could have taken advantage off.

When the show moved from BBC to Channel 4, it took a major blow, with Mary Berry and beloved cohosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins bowing out. 

It was a transition it never quite recovered from.

If Bake Off had made the right pick for the new judge, it could have marked a new era for the show and revive its status as great British TV.

But, I don’t believe the answer is Nigella Lawson – it was Nadiya Hussain.

Although the ever-changing rolodex of hosts (Sandi Toksvig to Matt Lucas to Alison Hammond) has brought its own raft of problems, they made the right choice with the 85-year-old judge: without a doubt, Prue Leith managed to fill the Mary Berry-shaped hole in many people’s hearts.

Not only do the two have the same aura of wisdom and matronly warmth, but they also both had a similar rapport with Paul – that of respected colleagues with a smidgen of playful banter – making the transition from Mary to Prue not feel too drastic.

Nigella doesn’t embody the whimsical slapstick chaos that Bake Off thrives on.

This move cements Bake Off taking a predictable and boring route when it should have launched a fresh era with the perfect new judge – Nadiya Hussain.

She could have brought back the viewers that Bake Off has been losing and putting the show in peril. The launch of the 2025 series secured only 3.1million viewers, the lowest in a decade (the finale drew in a tidy seven million).

What was once a staple end-of-summertime watch for most of the nation has halved its viewership (even if it does remain one of Channel 4’s most popular shows). 

I used to discuss the show with my friends, and would almost religiously keep up with it. But that’s all changed – nowadays, I may tune into an episode if I’m free and it happens to be on.

Nadiya could have brought me back, but the announcement of Nigella won’t.

I enjoy her shows as much as the next person (who can forget the ‘meecro-wah-vay’ meme), but for me she would feel out of place in the tent.

She’s already so established on TV with her own brand, it could be difficult to cement her as a Bake Off legend in her own right.

Nadiya on the other hand not only has a strong association with the long-running reality series making her an obvious choice, but she is, by far, one of the most memorable and well-liked winners on the show. 

I guarantee if you asked a member of the public to name a former winner, Nadiya is the first person they would say.

Nadiya even has experience, returning as a guest judge on Junior Bake Off a year after she won. It would be a heartwarming full-circle moment to welcome her back onto the main series to judge alongside the very man who awarded her the victory a decade ago.

What’s more, we could see a delightful mentor-protege dynamic play out between Nadiya and Paul, which would bring a rich new layer to the show we’ve never seen before, giving it that all-important shake-up.

But that’s not the only reason I would have loved to have seen Nadiya take up the baton.

Last year, the BBC confirmed that after several years of collaborating with Nadiya on a slew of cooking shows, they had ‘made the difficult decision not to commission another cookery show with Nadiya Hussain at the moment.’

After the news broke, Nadiya shared a powerful message saying that as a child of an immigrant household she was almost made to feel that she had to be grateful but she realises now that she is ‘allowed to feel angry when I’m treated unfairly’.

Later, she claimed that she felt the BBC ‘will keep you till you’re of no use to them’. 

As a Pakistani Muslim woman who has long loved Nadiya’s representation of the South Asian Muslim experience onscreen, it was gutting to see her share such a tough experience. But one I wasn’t surprised by. 

The idea of being the ‘right kind of’ marginalised person is something I too have long had to deal with. 

When I started a decolonisation group during my time at university, I remember feeling anxious that I was becoming too much trouble for the department, and perhaps I should just be grateful to have a place there.

Then in my professional career, I was advised by some to keep my head down and my (strong) opinions to myself for fear of rubbing the people in power the wrong way.

It’s why Nadiya making her comeback on the show that launched her into stardom, this time over on Channel 4, would feel like a true moment of poetic justice – and it is a gig I think she has truly earned.

What’s more, those who hark on about the good ol’ days of Bake Off – this would have been a perfect nostalgia boost to draw in older viewers and enough of a shock move to intrigue curious new audiences. 

In my view, Nadiya as judge would have been a win-win, and it’s wild that she was not chosen.

If Nadiya became the next Bake Off judge, I would have tuned back in as a loyal viewer. For Nigella I just shrug my shoulders and carry on.

I can only see benefits to Nadiya stepping up to the plate and Channel 4 have truly made a mistake.

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