Robert Peston | |
|---|---|
 Peston in February 2014 | |
| Born | (1960-04-25)25 April 1960 (age 64) |
| Education | Balliol College, Oxford Université Libre de Bruxelles |
| Occupations |
|
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | Maurice Peston (father) |
Robert James Kenneth Peston (born 25 April 1960) is an English journalist, presenter, and author. He is thePolitical Editor ofITV News and host of the weekly political discussion showPeston (previouslyPeston on Sunday) alongsideITV News DeputyPolitical EditorAnushka Asthana. From 2006 until 2014, he was the Business Editor ofBBC News and its Economics Editor from 2014 to 2015. He became known to the wider public with his reporting on the2008 financial crisis, especially with his exclusive information on theNorthern Rock crisis.[1] He is the founder of the education charity Speakers for Schools.
Robert James Kenneth Peston born into aJewish family on 25 April 1960, the son of Helen Conroy andMaurice Peston, Baron Peston (1931–2016), an economist andLabourlife peer. As the son of a life baron, he is entitled to the courtesy style "The Honourable", but does not use it. He attendedHighgate Wood Secondary School, a statecomprehensive school inLondon.[2] He graduated with a second-class degree inphilosophy, politics and economics fromBalliol College, Oxford,[3][4][5] and then studied at theUniversité libre de Bruxelles.[6]
Peston briefly worked as a stockbroker at Williams de Broë,[7] becoming a journalist in 1983 at theInvestors Chronicle and joiningThe Independent newspaper on its launch in 1986. From 1989 to 1990, Peston worked for the short-livedSunday Correspondent newspaper as Deputy City Editor, before being appointed City Editor of theIndependent on Sunday in 1990.[3][8]
From 1991 to 2000, he worked for theFinancial Times. At theFT, he was – at various times – Political Editor, Banking Editor and head of an investigations unit[8] (which he founded). During his time as Political Editor, he memorably fell out with the then Downing Street Press SecretaryAlastair Campbell, who regularly mimicked Peston's habit of flicking back his hair, and once responded to a difficult question with the words: "Another question from the Peston school of smartarse journalism."[9]
He became close friends with fellow journalist, now PR man,Roland Rudd, with the two being known as "The Pest and the Rat".[10] His last position at theFT was Financial Editor (in charge of business and financial coverage).[8]
In 2000, he became editorial director of the online financial analysis service Quest,[8] owned by the financial firm Collins Stewart. At the same time, he became a contributing editor ofThe Spectator and a weekly columnist forThe Daily Telegraph. In 2001, he switched allegiance from theTelegraph toThe Sunday Times, where he wrote a weekly business profile, Peston's People, and leftThe Spectator for theNew Statesman, where he wrote a weekly column.[11] In 2002, he joinedThe Sunday Telegraph as City editor and assistant editor. He became associate editor in 2005.[8]
In late 2005, it was announced that Peston would succeedJeff Randall as BBC Business Editor, responsible for business and City coverage on the corporation's flagship TV and radio news programmes, theBBC News Channel, itswebsite and onRadio 4'sToday.[citation needed]
While no impropriety on the part of Peston was implied, it was claimed inThe Observer[12] on 19 October 2008, that theSerious Fraud Office (SFO) could enquire into the source of one of Peston's scoops which, in September 2008, in the fraught atmosphere of the2008 financial crisis, revealed that merger talks betweenHBOS andLloyds TSB were at an advanced stage. In the minutes before the broadcast, buyers purchased millions of HBOS shares at the deflated price of 96p; in the hour following it, they could be sold for 215p. TheConservative MPGreg Hands had written to the SFO about this.
On 4 February 2009, Peston appeared as a witness at theHouse of CommonsTreasury Select Committee, along withAlex Brummer (City Editor,Daily Mail),Lionel Barber (editor of theFinancial Times),Sir Simon Jenkins (The Guardian) andSky News Business EditorJeff Randall to answer questions on the role of the media in financial stability and "whether financial journalists should operate under any form of reporting restrictions during banking crises."[13]
On 28 August 2009, Peston had a highly publicised row withJames Murdoch, following the latter's MacTaggart lecture.[14][15] In 2010-2011, he repeatedly broke stories relating toNews International'sinvolvement with phone hacking at times which were perceived as advantageous to the company, this, combined with his relationship with senior News International figures, led to articles and comments regarding his close relationship to the organisation.[16]
In 2010 Peston foundedSpeakers for Schools, a pro-bono education venture which organises speakers from the worlds of business, politics, media, the arts, science, engineering and sports to give talks for free in state schools.[3][17][18]
On 17 October 2013, Peston was appointed Economics Editor ofBBC News, replacingStephanie Flanders who was appointed as Chief Market Strategist atJP Morgan Asset Management.[19] He continued as Business Editor, as well until his replacementKamal Ahmed took over the post on 24 March 2014.[19]
On 4 October 2015, it was announced that Peston would leave the BBC to joinITV News as their Political Editor, replacingTom Bradby who became the main presenter ofNews at Ten. Peston made his last appearance onBBC News on 25 November 2015, and his first appearance on ITV'sNews at Ten on 11 January 2016.[20][21] He had a significant scoop in April 2016, when Prime MinisterDavid Cameron stated in an interview he had profited from his father's offshoreBlairmore Holdings trust, after information about the trust had been disclosed in thePanama Papers release.[3]
He presentsITV's new weekly political discussion show,Peston on Sunday, which started on 8 May 2016.[3] In 2018, the programme moved to a Wednesday night timeslot, rebranded asPeston.[22]
In December 2019, Peston apologised for incorrectly tweeting, without verification, that a Labour activist had punched a Conservative Party adviser. Footage was soon released showing that this was not true; he later apologised for his remarks and retracted them.[23][24] In 2020, he said thatBoris Johnson's government had becomesocialistic, and was "moreCastro than Castro".[25][26][27]
.jpg)
Peston has won theHarold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year Award (2005), theLondon Press Club's Scoop of the Year Award (2005),Granada Television'sWhat the Papers Say award for Investigative Journalist of the Year (1994) and the Wincott Young Financial Journalist of the Year (1986).
At theRoyal Television Society's Television Journalism Awards 2008/09 Peston won both "Specialist Journalist of the Year" and "Television Journalist of the Year" for his coverage of the credit crunch and a string of 'scoops' associated with it.[28] Also, his scoop on Lloyds TSB's takeover of HBOS won the Royal Television Society's "Scoop of the Year" award. He was voted Best Performer in a Non-Acting Role in the Broadcasting Press Guild's 2009 awards[29] and Business Journalist of the Year in the London Press Club's 2009 awards. In the 2008 Wincott Awards, he won the Broadcaster of the Year Award and he won the online award for his blog.
In 2009, he was named Political Journalist of the Year in the Political Studies Association Awards, and he topped polls of the general public and journalists carried out byPress Gazette to find the highest rated finance and business journalist.
Peston's scoop onNorthern Rock seeking emergency financial help from the Bank of England won theRoyal Television Society's Television Journalism Award for Scoop of the Year in the 2007/8 awards and the Wincott Award for Business News/Current Affairs Programme of the Year. He was Journalist of the Year in the Business Journalism of the Year Awards for 2007/08, and also won in the Scoop category.
Peston won theWork Foundation's Broadcast News Journalism Award and the Foundation's Radio Programme of the Year Award (for hisFile on 4, "The Inside Story of Northern Rock").[30] His blog won the digital media category in the Private Equity and Venture Capital Journalist of the Year Awards.[31]
Peston received an Honorary Doctorate fromHeriot-Watt University in 2010.[32] In 2011, he was honoured as a Fellow ofAberystwyth University in recognition of "his success in journalism, his insightful writing and his contribution to the local community".[33]
Peston's delivery on radio and television news has attracted comment.Tim Teeman inThe Times described his "intonation" as "raggedy [and] querulous" in 2008,[34] andAnn Treneman described Peston as "excruciatingly hard to listen to" in 2009.[35] Elizabeth Grice inThe Daily Telegraph identified "strangulated diction" and "repetition of small words" among his traits; in the same article, maintaining he is "loads better than [he] was", Peston himself conceded he is "still not as polished as some".[36]
Peston published his biography ofGordon Brown,Brown's Britain, in January 2005. It details the rivalry between Brown and the then Prime MinisterTony Blair.Brown's Britain was described bySir Howard Davies, former director of theLondon School of Economics, as "a book of unusual political significance". The cover of the book describes how "Peston was given unprecedented access to Gordon Brown and his friends and colleagues."
In February 2008,Hodder & Stoughton published Peston's bookWho Runs Britain? How the Super-Rich are Changing our Lives. InThe Guardian,Polly Toynbee said of it: "Reading Peston's book, you can only be flabbergasted all over again at how Labour kowtowed to wealth, glorified the City and put all the nation's economic eggs into one dangerous basket of fizzy finance."[37]
In September 2012, Hodder & Stoughton publishedHow Do We Fix This Mess? The Economic Price of Having it All and the Route to Lasting Prosperity.The Observer described it as "A must read...mandatory reading for anyone who wants to have a voice in where we go from here."
His bookWTF? was published by Hodder & Stoughton in November 2017 and charts the events that led up to the2016 Brexit referendum.Whistleblower, his first novel, appeared in September 2021. The protagonist is alobby journalist (political reporter) for the fictionalFinancial Chronicle and the colourful background to the story, set at the time of the1997 general election in Britain, reflects Peston's detailed knowledge of his subject.[38][39]
In September 2024, Hodder & Stoughton publishedHow To Run Britain: Therapy For A Traumatised Nation. Preston co-wrote the book withKishan Koria.[18]
Peston married British-Canadian writerSiân Busby in 1998, and the two had a son named Maximilian.[40] They had known each other since their teenage years and only rekindled their relationship after her friend, Peston's sister Juliet, was hospitalised after a car crash.[41]
In the intervening years, Busby had been married and divorced; Peston became the step-father of her son from that marriage. Busby died in September 2012, at the age of 51, of lung cancer.[42][43] In September 2018, Peston said he felt guilty after falling in love with another woman several years after his wife's death, and revealed that he was now in a relationship with author and journalist Charlotte Edwardes.[44]
Peston lives in theMuswell Hill area ofLondon. After his home was burgled in December 2012, he made an appeal for the return of rings that had belonged to his late wife.[45]
Peston is a member of a band called Centrist Dad. Peston, who is the vocalist, is accompanied byJohn Wilson, onbass guitar, andEd Balls, ondrums.[18]
Peston was born into a non-religious Jewish family,[3] and has described himself asculturally Jewish rather than religiously so.[6]His father was a patron of theBritish Humanist Association and an Honorary Associate of theNational Secular Society.[46]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | The Great Euro Crash | Presenter[47] | |
| 2013 | Robert Peston Goes Shopping | Presenter[48] | |
| 2014 | How China Fooled the World | Presenter[49] | |
| 2015 | Have I Got News for You | Guest host | 1 episode |
| 2015 | Quelle Catastrophe! France | Presenter[50] | |
| 2016 | The Great Chinese Crash? | Presenter[51] | |
| 2016 | The Agenda with Tom Bradby | Guest presenter | |
| 2016–2018 | Peston on Sunday | Presenter | |
| 2017 | Red Nose Day Actually | Himself | |
| 2018–present | Peston | Presenter |
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)That event and Mr Peston's role at it are indicative of the business editor's status, although he had previously clashed with James Murdoch at a dinner in Edinburgh in 2009, shortly after the News Corp scion had made a public attack on the BBC.
Mr Peston's relations with Mr Lewis, with whom he formerly worked at the Financial Times, go much deeper.
None of this would be a problem for the BBC if it were not for the suggestion that Mr Peston's scoops this month were helpful to Mr Murdoch's media organisation or factions within it.
Agggh. What is it with Robert Peston's raggedy, querulous intonation?
But this was the Peston show because Pesto, as he is called, has had a very, very good credit crunch. His stories have made him a star almost, it must be said, despite himself. For this is a man who can be excruciatingly hard to listen to. Many is the morning when I shout at the radio: 'Spit it out, man!'
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Business Editor ofBBC News 2006–2014 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Economics Editor ofBBC News 2013–2016 | |
| Preceded by | Political Editor ofITV News 2016–present | Incumbent |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
