Robert Peston, the BBC business editor, should be dropped in a "swamp" because of his gloomy reports on the economy, Lord Jones, the former business leader and trade minister, has suggested.
Lord Jones of Birmingham, the former CBI chief who served as a trade minister in Gordon Brown's "government of all the talents", complained that the BBC had ignored British business success stories.
Speaking at a dinner in London, he disclosed that an attempt to invite Mr Peston to visit a series of firms which were flourishing despite the economic gloom had been turned down because he was too busy.
Mr Peston, whose reports during last year's banking crisis were followed avidly in the City and Westminster alike, was judged more powerful than the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, in one survey.
His disclosure of the Northern Rock crisis and talks on the takeover of HBOS made him one of the most influential figures in Britain.
But Lord Jones earned laughs from his audience when he told them: "I've got a soft spot for Robert Peston – a swamp outside Birmingham."
An account of the speech in The Sun, added: "I rang up his producer and said, 'Let me take you to four different areas of the country, Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, and take you to see four firms making money'.
"He said Robert doesn't have the time to do it."
Lord Jones, who as Digby Jones was head of the CBI between 2000 and 2006, resigned from the Government last year after a 15-month spell as a trade minister.
He has since been an outspoken critic of some of his former colleagues.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...ould-be-dropped-in-a-swamp---Digby-Jones.html
