"ROBERT Peston, BBC”. For a decade the phrase slipped off the tongue as one of the country’s most high profile journalists unleashed his interrogations of those in power.

Which is why Robert, 57, did not immediately realise he had done anything wrong when he introduced himself as such to the Prime Minister at a press conference earlier this month.

It was only later that it slowly dawned on him he’d momentarily forgotten who he worked for, despite having been ITV’s political editor for two years now.

Recalling the incident, which other reporters seized upon with glee, Robert says it was categorically “not a Freudian slip”, before adding: “It was a bit embarrassing, though.”

“I had been asking questions for the BBC for so many years and, for some reason, I slipped back into the old habits.

“At the time I had a feeling I had done something wrong but carried on regardless and it wasn’t until I checked Twitter and saw it was in meltdown that I realised what had happened.

“Things got even more surreal because I tweeted that I wanted to kill myself and started to get emails from Twitter telling me to get professional help so I had to tweet again to thank the concerned algorithm but reassure everyone I was okay.”

From his distinct delivery style to his haircut and clothes, Robert has had to get used to his every move being scrutinised since he rose to prominence as the BBC’s Business and then Economics Editor during the height of the world financial crisis.

But the journalist, who worked at the Financial Times before crossing over to broadcast, doesn’t seem overly concerned with his status as a celebrity, instead appearing to relish being in the limelight.

“I have quite a thick skin and I do not mind if people want to be rude; I just ignore it,” he says.

“The plus side is that if they are taking notice of your hair and clothes, they may listen to the message that you are trying to communicate as well.”

Mr Peston’s latest book, cheekily titled WTF, attempts to understand the reasons behind why people voted for Brexit and Donald Trump.

He was motivated to write it in order to question why he, among many others, had ‘got it so wrong’.

“I argued Brexit would make us a bit poorer and I wanted to understand why millions of people did not care that the economy may suffer if we left and what they felt they were protesting about. On the back of Brexit I did expect America to vote for Trump but I wanted to explain why millions voted for a president who, some may argue, was more interested in protecting the rich rather than the poor.

“These are big questions that result in big shifts, they are huge and powerful currents and they cannot be changed any time soon without significant intellectual cooperation.”

He says he could never get bored covering Brexit and is indeed more often overwhelmed by the amount of genuinely important things going on that should command his attention.

But he thinks it’s a tragedy that exiting the European Union has swallowed up so much of the intellectual capacity of government, leaving very few resources to fix problems like inequality.

The Balliol College, Oxford graduate who now lives in Muswell Hill, North London says many privileged people underestimated the impact globalisation and immigration were having on the country.

He believes he has uncovered various lessons that should be learnt on the back of the vote.

“The lucky intellectuals in places like Oxford saw the benefits of globalisation”, he says. “People like me thought it was an amazing thing, lifting millions of people out of poverty in places like China, and giving them different, more fulfilling lives.

“We missed how these trends were undermining the quality of life for large numbers of people and how globalisation can be very damaging.

“If your community is changing at such an astonishing rate, like it did in some parts of the UK, it is a shock to its sense of itself. Of course, that can be unsettling.

“The people who run this country were naive, and often patronising, and I do think there are lessons to learn for all of us who live in cosmopolitan centres, of which Oxford is certainly one.”

Robert is back in the city on Tuesday and his talk is set to be one of the highlights of the Oxford Literary Festival.

It’s likely to be a more serious affair than the last time he was in town when he sung the Queen classic Bohemian Rhapsody live on stage with the Jericho Singers, an experience he describes as one of the “joys of my life”.

But the story is one with sad beginnings as it links back to the death of his wife of 14 years, author Sian Busby, from lung cancer.

In an attempt to fill the hole left in his life, Robert appealed for BBC Radio 4 listeners to suggest new things he could try out.

He left the BBC and the series was cancelled, but he went ahead with the performance anyway, despite “only just” being able to reach the high notes.

Tragedy hit again in 2016 when his father, Labour peer Maurice Peston, died aged 85 and Robert has described the latest book as the conversation with his father that he couldn’t have.

A period of such emotional turmoil doesn’t seem the best time to make a career defining move, but Robert says he has never regretted his decision to switch to ITV and describes his Sunday morning show as “the pride and joy of my working life”.

Since he left, his old employer has become embroiled in another scandal after its most high profile male journalists were revealed to have been paid far more than female equivalents.

Robert, who is reportedly on £300,000 a year at ITV, said he was shocked when the disparities emerged and said he had perhaps been “a bit naive” about it.

He said: “I feel very sorry for my old colleagues. It is a very important organisation for the UK’s news culture and I am sad to see it under attack and in such turmoil and I wish it luck in sorting itself out.

“But I would also argue it’s not in a unique position; we have all got to do something about this.”

The shift to ITV has led many to speculate that, freed of the constraints of the BBC, he has become more willing to express his own opinion.

Indeed, he uses the new book to call for a revolution in education and an overhaul of the way the Treasury and Bank of England work.

But he denies becoming more radical during his ITV years.

“I know a lot of people think that but I don’t think there’s been a change. I have always taken the view that impartial journalism is not one that does not express a view.

“It is about looking at the evidence and saying this or that view is more plausible. You trawl through the data and say on balance this is what I think is the case.”

It’s clear that, regardless who he works for, Robert Peston is going to be asking the questions that matter for many years to come.

  • Robert Peston is interviewed by Matthew Stadlen for the Oxford Literary Festival on Tuesday at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. Go to oxfordliteraryfestival.org