BBC presenter Andrew Marr today revealed he contracted Covid-19 last week despite having received two doses of the vaccine.

The 61-year-old journalist made the admission this morning on his eponymous television programme, saying he believes he contracted it while covering the G7 in Cornwall.

He was absent from last week's show with the BBC former political editor Nick Robinson presenting the programme instead.

Marr told viewers this morning that he had symptoms akin to "a summer cold" and said it had been "really, really quite unpleasant".

He filmed his Sunday morning programme live from Cornwall on June 13 while the G7 was going on. But he was not inside the closed off area at Carbis Bay, instead filming from the Tate St Ives gallery.

At the start of an interview today with Professor Sir Peter Horby, the chairman of virus advisory group Nervtag, he said: "I hope it is not self indulgent Sir Peter to ask you about me, because I got coronavirus last week. 

"I'd been double jabbed earlier in the spring and felt, if not king of the world, at least almost entirely immune. And yet I got it, was I just unlucky?"

Sir Peter replied: "I think you were. What we know with the vaccines is that they are actually remarkably effective at preventing hospitalisations and deaths. 

"They are less effective at preventing infection. So although you were sick you were not hospitalised and there wasn't any fatality and that is probably because of the vaccination."

Later, interviewing London mayor Sadiq Khan about the Delta variant, Marr added: "It's spreading quite fast. I've been a victim, though I think I got mine at the G7 in Cornwall."

Marr nearly died following a stroke in 2013 when he was 53 and was admitted to Charing Cross Hospital in the middle of the night.  

He is likely to have been vaccinated among the first wave as someone who is clinically vulnerable.

He added today: "I'm pretty clear that by being vaccinated I did not end up in hospital and that is a great thing.

"But we use slightly glibly occasionally this phrase 'mild and moderate infections'. For me it was really, really quite unpleasant."

Last week health chiefs in Cornwall denied the G7 was not to blame for spiralling Covid cases locally.

Rachel Wigglesworth, its director of public health, argued infections were already increasing before the three-day summit took place because of May's easing of restrictions.

Leaders of the UK, US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy descended on the region between June 11 and 13, along with their teams, security staff, journalists and protesters.