The Honourable Peter
Jay (born
7 February 1937) is a British economist, broadcaster and
diplomat.
Background
Peter Jay is the son of
Douglas and
Peggy Jay, both of whom were
Labour Party politicians.
He was educated at The
Dragon
School
, Oxford (the alma mater of several senior Labour
politicians, including Hugh
Gaitskell), followed by Winchester College
(where he was head boy) and
Christ Church,
Oxford
, where he graduated with a first class honours degree in
PPE.
He was
commissioned in the Royal Navy, then
worked as a civil servant at HM Treasury
before becoming a journalist and, for 10 years, economics editor
with The Times.
Jay is the former husband of
Margaret Jay, whom
he married in 1961 and divorced in 1986.
His friend Dr David Owen, Foreign Secretary in the
government of Jay's father-in-law, James
Callaghan, appointed him UK Ambassador to the United States
(1977-1979), an appointment that caused some
controversy and accusations of nepotism.
Career
In the early 1970s, Jay was the principal presenter of the
London Weekend Television Sunday
news analysis programme
Weekend
World. In 1972, Jay co-authored, with his friend
John Birt, a series of articles for
The Times where they criticised standard television
journalism and developed what came to be called their "mission to
explain".
Jay subsequently returned to journalism in Britain but was
initially most visible as leader of a consortium of high-profile
media figures, including
David Frost and
Anna Ford, who won the licence for an idea
that did not work according to its business plan: he was founding
chairman of
TV-am, the breakfast TV station
launched by the consortium, where the initial focus on news and
current affairs did not yield economic success for the company (the
first to broadcast outside traditional broadcasting hours in
Britain). The station was rescued after a coup that involved
Jonathan Aitken and by the more
down-market
Roland Rat character
introduced by
Greg Dyke, whose success
there helped him build his credibility to become Director-General
of the
BBC.
Peter Jay's career took a surprising turn when he became Chief of
Staff to
Robert Maxwell during his
most high-profile and controversial years. Margaret Jay led
Maxwell's Aids Foundation around the same time, where she met her
present husband professor Mike Adler. Like so many who worked for
Maxwell, this left no stain on their subsequent careers.
Peter Jay returned to highbrow journalism and became Economics
Editor of the BBC, specially appointed by John Birt, and presented
editions of
The Money Programme.
His appearances on screen with explanations of major economic and
business issues showed his intellectual grasp but could sometimes
baffle his peak-time news audience. After his retirement, this task
was handled by his successors (separately for economics and
business) in a rather simpler and arguably more lucid way, with
more visual illustration. Jay wrote a book,
The Road to Riches
or the Wealth of Man (2000, Weidenfeld & Nicholson),
exploring the history of man's search for wealth, and presented a
related BBC TV documentary series.
He has
been a non-executive director of the Bank of England
since 2003. He has been a governor of the
Ditchley Foundation since
1982.
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