Man of the hour BBC business editor Robert Peston somehow found time to write the Sunday Times’ My Week column.
In it he shrugs off complaints that his reporting on Tuesday morning of the chancellor’s bailout talks with the banks caused their shares to plunge – which has caused former Tory leader Michael Howard to complaint to the FSA.
He points out:
“I had written a blog on Saturday discussing the sort of bailout that the Treasury was considering – so I didn’t think I was airing any great secrets three days later when I said the banks had told the chancellor to hurry up.”
But former City AM editor David Parsley, writing in the Sunday Express, claims that Peston has become a pawn of the banking industry.
He says of Peston:
“…his sources among the banks and those who are supposed to regulate the City are using the BBC to put the fear of God into politician, the markets and the public in order to achieve their goals.
“Peston’s revelations, which have made him the most powerful journalist in Britain today, have led directly to this taxpayer’s rescue of the banking system and that’s what the bank bosses wanted.”
Peston also revealed in the Sunday Times that he does not dye his hair, that he starts work shortly after waking up at 6am and rarely finished before 10.30pm and that he worked for a year in the City after leaving university but found it “staggeringly dull”.
He says:
“You have to make a decision in life about whether to do things for money or for fun, and I’ve always opted for fun”.
Neither of these articles appear to be online.
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