About the Author

Robert Peston is Political Editor for ITV News. Until the end of 2015 he was the BBC's Economics Editor; and from 2006 to 2013, he was BBC Business Editor. As a journalist for more than 30 years, he has been Political Editor and Financial Editor of the Financial Times, City Editor of the Sunday Telegraph and a columnist for the New Statesman and Sunday Times (inter alia). Peston has won more than 30 awards for his journalism, including Journalist of the Year and Scoop of the Year (twice) from the Royal Television Society, Performer of the Year from the Broadcasting Press Guild, Broadcaster of the Year and Journalist of the Year from the Wincott Foundation and Business Journalist of the Year from the London Press Club. Peston has published three critically acclaimed books, How Do We Fix This Mess? The Economic Price of Having It All, and the Route to Lasting Prosperity, Who Runs Britain?, his best-selling account of who is to blame for the economic and financial crisis of 2007-9, and Brown's Britain, a biography of Gordon Brown and analysis of the New Labour government. He is the founder of Speakers for Schools (www.speakers4schools.org), an education charity which organises free talks from inspirational speakers for students at state schools. He was married to the writer Sian Busby who died in 2012. You can read, watch and follow Robert at itv.com/peston and facebook.com/pestonitv and twitter.com/peston

Reviews

'An unbuttoned and vitally even-handed analysis that takes in everything from the decline of social mobility to the tyranny of social media.'--Metro

'Elegant analysis of long term forces driving our politics (inc some solutions). Also a moving tribute to his dad.'--Paul Waugh, Huffington Post

'Essential reading.'--Stylist

'Informed, personal, angry and funny: Peston lets rip in an immensely readable and thought-provoking book.'--Eddie Mair

'Read the book, everyone. It's a superb analysis of the state we're in and what we can do about it. WTF?'--Cole Moreton

'Robert Peston's WTF is a work of meticulous analysis that is also an inspiring, and often moving, manifesto for change. Beautifully-written, it is a manual for our times that everyone should read.'--Matthew d'Ancona

'The chapters on Tony Blair's and Gordon Brown's approach to borrowing, the handling of the banking crash and the failure to address economic inequality in its aftermath are well worth bookmarking.'--Guardian

'This gripping and persuasive account of the mess facing liberal democracy ends with some optimism that politicians will rise to the challenge of responding to the tide of hopelessness.'--i newspaper

'This is a more radical, more passionate, swearier book than I would have expected from Peston - and the better for it... WTF is a great primer on how we ended up here. To escape this mess, we must first understand that.'--London Evening Standard

'Richly argued and brilliantly written... a deeply thoughtful analysis that should be mandatory reading for anyone seeking to understand where we have gone wrong.'
--Vernon Bogdanor, Financial Times