Brian Walden, the former Labour MP who became best known for presenting the ITV programme Weekend World, has died aged 86, his family and friends have announced.

Walden died on Thursday at his home in Guernsey from complications connected to emphysema, according to an announcement made by former broadcasting colleagues on behalf of his widow, Hazel.

He represented the Birmingham constituency of All Saints for a decade from 1964. After the seat was abolished, he became the MP for Birmingham Ladywood.

Renowned as an outstanding House of Commons orator, Walden remained a backbench MP and, in 1977, he quit parliament to become a journalist and broadcaster.

He took over from Peter Jay as host of London Weekend Television’s Weekend World politics show and presented the programme for nine years, after which he was replaced by another newly resigned MP, Matthew Parris.

Walden acquired a reputation as a robust interviewer, and questioned Margaret Thatcher several times.

Walden had the first TV interview with Thatcher after she became prime minister. Photograph: PA

She gave her first television interview as prime minister to Walden – even though it had to wait for a technicians’ strike to end – in part, it seems, due Thatcher’s dislike of the BBC.

Walden was often cited as an admirer of Thatcher, but in a BBC interview in 2005, when he began filling the late Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America slot on Radio 4 with A Point of View, he said it was more a case of recognising her impact.

“She was an immensely important influence,” Walden said. “Thatcher changed everything. The reason that you’re living in the sort of society you’re living in now is because of what Thatcher did in the 1980s. It was an utterly different place when she came to power in 1979.

“She changed things in a radical way that hadn’t happened since the war and hasn’t happened since. Thatcher was the great changer.”

In the same interview, he described Ronald Reagan as the most pleasant politician he had interviewed. “It wasn’t a contrived image. He was just a thoroughly nice, good-tempered chap. He didn’t know that much, but he knew certain basics and he shared views with the ordinary American,” Walden said.

In contrast, he said he found John Major disappointing: “You couldn’t get him to open up. He didn’t like the pressure of it. He didn’t actually want to tell the viewers anything. He didn’t like frank interviewing, it wasn’t his scene.”

Walden is survived by his wife and four sons.