Insiders said her skill in reporting in the Middle East meant she had been highly rated for some time

As Iran was firing scores of ballistic missiles into Israel and Israel was launching a ground invasion into southern Lebanon last autumn, BBC News presenter Anna Foster was calmly anchoring the tense and complicated events for the 10 o’clock news from Beirut without an Autocue.

It was an outing that convinced senior BBC bosses that her experience of the Middle East, as well as the ability to handle the pressure of such a delicate international story, made her the right person to host the corporation’s flagship radio news programme.