Carol Vorderman meets the Clintons: Ex-Countdown star cosies up with Bill and Hillary at Swansea University event

Carol Vorderman was seen cosying up to Bill and Hillary Clinton last night as the American power couple attended an event at Swansea University.

The ex-Countdown star posted a series of images on her X/Twitter page of her smiling and laughing with the pair and enjoying a sit-down meal.

Describing their evening, she wrote: ‘I give bursaries to @SwanseaUni for kids from my kind of background-free school meals. Swansea also provides education for young people from war torn countries.

‘Hillary Clinton is a great supporter. I might have told a few Tory stories at the fundraiser.’

She then posted a clasped hands emoji ‘to the Clintons’, appearing to thank them for the visit.

Ms Clinton, whose great grandparents were from Wales, has close ties with the university as the law school is named after her and she also launched a global challenges programme for master’s degree students. 

Carol Vorderman enjoys a laugh with former US President Bill Clinton at an event in Swansea

The former Countdown star also posed with Hillary Clinton and Starling Bank founder Anne Boden

The broadcaster poses for a selfie after appearing at the fundraising event at Swansea University

It came as her husband, the former US president, described the conflict in Gaza as ‘heartbreaking’ as he engaged in discussion with Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford.

Mr Clinton was in the Oval Office at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and used his presidency to build peace and stability between Israel and Palestinians.

READ MORE: Former US president Bill Clinton says war in Gaza is ‘heartbreaking’ as he gives leadership talk with wife Hillary at Swansea University 

The current conflict was triggered by a wide-ranging Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7 in which the militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and captured some 240 men, women and children.

Israel has responded with a weeks-long air campaign and a ground invasion of northern Gaza, vowing to remove Hamas from power.  

More than 11,200 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Speaking at an event at Swansea University, Mr Clinton said: ‘It’s terrible, heartbreaking for someone like me who worked for eight years for peace in the Middle East.

‘I know Gaza, I know the old city of Jerusalem and the West Bank. It’s heartbreaking.

‘You have every day to make a choice – all of you.

‘Do you believe that you can do better together or keep telling each other that it is our differences that all that matter or keep struggling for common ground.’

Mr Clinton, who had joined his wife – former secretary of state Hillary Clinton – at an event discussing leadership for future generations, said the current global unrest was a reaction to the building of democracy and cooperation at the end of the Cold War.

Mr Clinton was in the Oval Office at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and used his presidency to build peace and stability between Israel and Palestinians

Former secretary of state Hilary Clinton and the first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, joined Bill Clinton on the panel at Swansea University

Mr Clinton said the situation in Gaza was ‘terrible, heartbreaking for someone like me who worked for eight years for peace in the Middle East’

Mr Clinton said that current instability was a reaction to the building of democracy and cooperation at the end of the Cold War

Ms Clinton warned that there were ‘nation states, terrorists and ‘other actors’ who were trying to tell a ‘version of reality that is not true’

The wide-ranging discussion also touched on climate change, migration, and Wales’ efforts to achieve net zero

‘It was only a matter of time before people who didn’t believe in democracy, and didn’t believe in the rule of law, and believed that their differences with their neighbours were more important than what they had in common,’ he said.

‘We are living through a series of reactions, and it will either derail what could be a moment of greatest peace and cooperation and advances in science and technology, human understanding and history or another one of those disappointing phases that throws us back into something that we would all not want to live through.

‘My gut is that we will get through this, and we will resume allowing systematic cooperation overcome conflict.

‘It won’t happen unless people stand up for cooperation over conflict, for peace over war and for what we have in common is more important than our interested differences and make it possible for those differences to help us all.’

Ms Vorderman also posted pictures of her with Anne Boden, the founder of Starling Bank.

She added in her post: ‘She and I are both Welsh girls of the same age, both similar backgrounds. Anne is from Swansea, studied maths at Uni all back in the 1970s when girls like us didn’t do those things. 

‘Became first woman to set up a bank in the UK and now she’s giving back. You never forget where you’re from. Love her.’

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