Evan Davis is perhaps one of Britain's best known journalists - a figure who has gone from the Today Programme to Newsnight. When I referred to him as a journalist, though, he was keen to remind me that "you have to remember there are lots of different types of journalism: there’s reporting, investigating, explaining, and writing or performing – and each of these are very different skills. But mine, and I noticed this very quickly, was distilling; it was boiling things down and explaining. And that’s basically what I’ve been doing ever since. But you really don’t want all journalists to be like me – that would be catastrophic… It’s just great to have a kind of mixed eco-system.”

Davis’s first foray into the journalistic eco-system was serving as Editor of Varsity’s Oxford counterpart Cherwell, of which he told me his primary memory is “being tired the whole time. You have to remember that the technology was a lot less advanced than it is now – so putting a paper to bed was: getting all the copy together; going to a type setter who would physically type it all up and stick it on a sheet; and then us getting a train to Bristol where we would then take delivery of the finished paper.” A thought he shared with which all students will agree is that “the terms just went so quickly – one thing I appreciate in retrospect is how short the terms are – how intense they were but how short they were. Just as you were getting the hang of it it was ‘ding – time up: your go’s over’. I’ve still got my eight Cherwells sitting up in my loft and I still glance at them… I enjoyed it, but more in retrospect.”

On taking over as presenter of Newsnight from his infamous predecessor, Davis acknowledged “it has had lots of challenges – but none of them really relating to Jeremy Paxman… I’m not trying to be like Jeremy Paxman – if you want Jeremy Paxman there are people better than me to do that – notably Jeremy Paxman.” For Davis, “it’s just it’s quite a high profile job and everyone makes a fuss about what you say and what emphasis you use – so it’s a lot of scrutiny… there are some days where I come out feeling elated, and sometimes thinking how rubbish I am.”

One day which may well have fallen into the latter category is his heated interview with Russell Brand in October 2014. “What I think was going on with Russell Brand is he was quite intense – he was interesting and had things to say but he was trying to almost shout me down – and if I had tried to shout him down back I would have just raised his volume by another three notches. If you’re dealing with someone awkward or uncivil – and I’m not saying he was uncivil – the best thing you can do, if you can manage it, is to be incredibly calm and civil back – to stop the temperature from rising.” Davis admits “it wasn’t my finest moment. As I came out the Editor said ‘I’m not sure how that’s going to go down’ but actually in the press coverage I think I got the better of it. It was a stressful 15 minutes.”

Stress is evidently not an unusual occurrence for Evan Davis, though – giving a weary laugh when the number of EU interviews he has been doing recently was mentioned; he is clearly well-aware of the responsibilities of covering an event as momentous as the upcoming referendum. “You’ll be talking about it in 40 years’ time… I was 12 when the last one occurred and I can still remember it quite vividly. Britain has grappled with this issue for as long as we’ve not had Empire… and it seems to divide people in quite unpredictable ways: Giles Fraser – who is a left-leaning, Church of England guy – I assumed he would be for ‘in’, but he’s for ‘out’.” However, he adds “in effect, the issue is much less binary than the ‘Remain or Leave question implies’… Britain is not going to be a fully-fledged member of the currency zone and we’re not going to be an isolationist, detached country off the continent of Europe which has nothing to do with it – it’s somewhere in between.”

As for challenges beyond 23rd June, I asked him who he would most like to interview. He asked: “do you know that woman who reads the news in North Korea?” I replied, slightly surprised – having been expecting him to name an A list celebrity or veteran politician – that I did. “She always has a slight smile on her face as she announces the departure of the hydrogen bomb, or the launching of the long range missile. And she does it with such panache, but in a very different way to how most of us would read the news if we were to do it here… She’s the person I’d like to sit down and have a long chat to.”

Davis’s answers seem to have the same originality he later told the audience at the Union he strives for in his questions, to prevent politicians from ‘bullshitting’ him. He may not be Jeremy Paxman, but Evan Davis is to be credited for cultivating a style so distinctly his own.