Robert Peston

“It may not be pretty but, on the whole, greed is good..” – Robert Peston

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Robert James Kenneth Peston (born 25 April 1960) is the BBC's Business Editor. A ‘who’s who’ report compiled for Barack Obama by US intelligence in early 2009 listed Peston amongst the UK’s most influential commentators.

Biography

Peston was born on 25 April 1960, the son of the economist and Labour peer Maurice Peston. He attended Highgate Wood Comprehensive School in North London and then Balliol College, Oxford where he graduated with a degree on Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1982. After graduating he worked at the London stockbrokers Williams de Broe before moving into financial journalism. He was City Editor at the Independent on Sunday from 1991 to 1992 and then joined the Financial Times where he held various posts until 2000. He was Banking Editor, 1992–93; Head of Investigations, 1993–95; Political Editor, 1995–2000; and Financial Editor and Assistant Editor in 2000.

He worked as Associate Editor at The Spectator from 2000 to 2001, and a columnist at the New Statesman and the Sunday Times from 2001 to 2002. From 2000 to 2002 he was also Editorial Director at CSQuest.com, a financial information website designed for international equity fund managers. In 2002 he joined the Sunday Telegraph as City Editor and Assistant Editor.

Robert Peston took up his position as the BBC's Business Editor on 13 February 2006. His predecessor Jeff Randall had been appointed the BBC's first Business Editor by Greg Dyke so as part of his mission of taking business centre stage in the BBC.’

Views

In his book, Who runs Britain? How the super-rich are changing our lives, Peston writes that: 'It may not be pretty but, on the whole, greed is good.' Like his predecessor Peston has argued that the BBC should try and present stories more from the perspective of business. In his submission to the BBC's Independent Panel on Impartiality of BBC Business Coverage, he argued that:

[The BBC] almost never use the long-term language of the owner. And yet most of us are owners – if we save in a pension fund – of every substantial UK listed company and many overseas businesses. What happens to Vodafone, to HSBC or to GlaxoSmithKline matters to all of us. And even if we think that the banks are ripping us off or that Tesco is unfairly crushing suppliers, the dividends they generate will sustain most of us in retirement.

In fact a significant number of people in Britain do not have a pension at all, let alone a significant stake in a listed company. BBC News Online reported poll research in May 2009 suggesting that half of UK adults aged between 20 and 60 are not putting aside any funds into a pension. The survey found that of those under 30 only 36% had a pension, whilst the rest could not afford to do so because of high levels of personal debt.

Affiliations

Peston is the son of the economist and Labour peer Maurice Peston. He is friends with Roland Rudd, founder of the financial PR firm Finsbury. He is also reportedly close to senior figures in News International. According to the Daily Mail Peston and Will Lewis, who was appointed group general manager at News International in 2010, are friends and neighbours living in North London and were former colleagues at the Financial Times. He is also reported to be close to Simon Greenberg, News International's director of corporate affairs.