Priti Patel confronted with Boris Johnson quote by Peston

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Robert Peston will appear on ITV’s All Star Musicals tonight, a far cry from his day job as ITV’s Political Editor. He’ll join Ranj Singh, Rob Rinder, Barney Walsh, Jessica Hynes and Luisa Bradshaw-White to perform songs from hit musicals such as Chicago, The Greatest Showman, Guys and Dolls and Beauty & the Beast. They will be trying to impress musical theatre stars Elaine Paige, Samantha Barks and Trevor Dion Nicholas, as well as the viewing audience

Mr Peston has made his name covering politics and economics for major broadcasters including ITV as well as the BBC.

Despite having previously worked for the BBC, he was critical of its Brexit coverage during the 2016 referendum on EU membership.

In October 2018, Mr Peston reflected on the broadcaster’s coverage, saying it hadn’t always been impartial.

He told the Cheltenham Literature Festival: “The problem with the BBC, during the campaign, it put people on with diametrically opposed views and didn’t give their viewers and listeners any help in assessing which one was the loony and which one was the genius.

“I do think that they went through a period of just not being confident enough.

“Impartial journalism is not giving equal airtime to two people one of whom says the world is flat and the other one says the world is round.

“That is not balanced, impartial journalism.”

Mr Peston had repeatedly said on air that the UK economy would be worse off as a result of Brexit.

The journalist also reflected on the moment when the Vote Leave campaign sent a complaint to Ofcom accusing ITV of pro-Remain bias.

The complaint was dismissed after the group instructed its lawyers “to get him off air”, the Guardian reported.

Mr Peston said impartial journalism was about “weighing the evidence and saying on the balance of probabilities…this is the truth”.

He added: “It is the role of a journalist to say, ‘we’ve got these two contradictory arguments, I’m now going to advise all of you which is likely to be closer to the truth.’”

Mr Peston also addressed the comments he had made on air, claiming that while he felt the UK would be poorer, the Remain side had “overdone” its negative predictions.

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He said on air that the UK would be “not massively poorer. I thought the Project Fear bit of the Government’s campaign was overdone. But poorer”.

The journalist has covered economics for years, and also offered his analysis on the future of the eurozone.

In Europe, Peston said there is a lack of political and sustainable union between countries, especially Germany and France. He said: “As long as there is that mistrust then the Eurozone will continue to struggle.”

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