Those who scoff at Robert Peston’s overt radicalism question not his credentials, his ability to convert sophisticated information into digestible copy, nor his unparalleled knowledge of behind-closed-doors conversations; they question his proximity to the government.
The 48-year-old North London resident (leafy enclave Muswell Hill to be precise), former stockbroker and author of Brown’s Britain, is the son of economist and Labour peer Maurice Peston.
Richard Branson, discussing the thorny topic of his failed attempt to acquire Northern Rock, expressed his frustration at the treasuries’ reliance on “the view of Robert Peston”, claiming “it was odd that he [Peston] often had information about our proposal before we were told”.
Second in command of the treasury, John Kingman, is a former colleague of Peston’s from their Financial Times days.
Granted, Branson’s gripes were lifted directly from his book Business Stripped Bare, and he was characteristically on the publicity trail when attention was drawn towards the Peston-related comments.
Here's the scandal: many of the bankers who created this poison trousered massive rewards, running to tens of millions of dollars each.
Peston on the perverse nature of banker bonuses
The BBC’s business chief is himself in the business of unit shifting, authoring as he has a number of probing and engaging insights into financial mechanics.
Branson’s words couldn’t have been more prophetic when, within weeks of Business Stripped Bare hitting the shelves, 22 million HBOS shares were snapped up at 0.96p, minutes before Robert Peston declared Lloyds TSB and HBOS were in takeover talks.
Forty five minutes later, those shares were worth 215p.
Despite rumours of an impending serious fraud office intervention, the probe has never materialised.
Peston, to his credit, remains reticent.
Financial weathervane
Peston, in line with such flexible thinkers as Barack Obama and Seth Godin, has used the internet as a tool to gain leverage into a whole new class of communication.
His blog, Peston’s Picks, has established itself as the premier financial weathervane across all media, accumulating 650,000 daily hits.
Using the blog as his platform, Peston is able to convey such invaluable excogitation as the following on City irresponsibility:
"Greedy bankers and their ignorant bosses didn't understand that the investment products they were creating and selling, which they said were gold, were actually poisoned.
“But here's the scandal: many of the bankers who created this poison trousered massive rewards, running to tens of millions of dollars each.
“They can sit on a beach and need never work again, whereas we are paying the price.”
While Peston’s written insight, foresight and opinion dazzles day upon day, his scattershot vocal delivery continues to divide opinion among radio and television audiences.
The Gatling gun barrage of facts and ideas, filtered through a series of over-enunciated tics, ensures any given message will be lost somewhere between Peston’s lips and the floating devotee’s cochlea.
If the BBC business editor’s mouth moved as fast as his brain, he could conceivably be running the country by now – provided that isn’t the case already.
With consummate cartoonish outrage, it was the Daily Mail who reacted most zealously to allegations of collusion between Peston, the treasury and banks.
“Michael Seamark, news editor and part-time showbiz correspondent at the Mail, asked the question “Does this man have too much power?” of Peston, following on to describe him as “the man who moves markets” and a “market menace”.
Peston became the de facto face of the recession when he announced the impending collapse of Northern Rock, assuming a position held and embodied by John Cole during the UK’s last period of shrinking GDP in the early 90s.
