This fiction is my fault alone. But Phil Webster, a distinguished former political editor of the Times, responded with characteristic generosity when I couldn’t remember some technical details about the era. And the brilliant former editor of the Financial Times, Richard Lambert, is to blame for whatever knowledge I possess about how the blessed system of running this place worked and works. Richard gave me my biggest break in journalism by recruiting me and providing me with a licence to make trouble, at a paper that historically was always a goody-two-shoes.

I wouldn’t have had the guts to write this without the love and support of my boys Max and Simon, who came into my life in the mid 1990s, of the inspirational Charlotte, and of the wonderful Margot, Douglas and Audrey, who have so generously given me a home. The soundtrack to my writing was Margot on the bass, Douglas shouting profanities over the internet at his gaming friends and Audrey learning her BM portion.

The Whistleblower is of course entirely made up. But in writing it, memories of my sometimes complicated – and never boring – family were triggered, and made me realise quite how much I owe to the Pestons: my mum, Helen, my sister Juliet and my brother Edmund. I love them very much.

Robert Peston, London, June 2021

About the Author

About the Author

Robert Peston is ITV’s political editor, presenter of the politics show ‘Peston’, founder of the education charity, Speakers for Schools (www.speakers4schools.org), and vice president of Hospice UK. He has written four critically acclaimed non-fiction books, How Do We Fix This Mess?, Who Runs Britain?, Brown’s Britain and his latest, WTF?, which was described by the Financial Times as ‘mandatory reading’ for anyone seeking to understand Brexit, Trump and the collapse of confidence in western liberalism.

For a decade until the end of 2015, he was at the BBC, as economics editor and business editor, and in the 1990s he was at the Financial Times, as political editor, financial editor and head of investigations. At the BBC he played a prominent role in exposing the causes and consequences of the credit crunch, banking crisis and Great Recession. 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. The Whistleblower is his first novel.

Find him on his blog at itv.com/robertpeston, on Facebook at facebook.com/pestonITV, and on Twitter @peston.

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