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Political Journalist of the Year

Robert Peston

Robert Peston was the unanimous choice of the jury for Political Journalist of the Year. The panel pointed to the outstanding significance of his contribution to our understanding of the current financial crisis. As BBC Business Editor he was to begin with a lone voice predicting the coming economic turbulence. His groundbreaking journalism led on the Northern Rock story and again when HBOS got into trouble. As a result of the crisis he has become a household name and the key authority on unfolding economic developments.

Educated at Highgate Wood Comprehensive, in Crouch End, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took PPE, Robert Peston was destined for a career in the city – until he succumbed to boredom at the firm Williams de Broe, the stockbrokers who gave him his first job, and moved into journalism via a stint at the Investors Chronicle. He wrote for The Independent, the short-lived Sunday