How the f *** did we get where we are today? Journalist and broadcaster Robert Peston offers a trenchant analysis of the ‘state of the nation’. With characteristic passion and clarity, he looks at what must happen to prevent democracy being subverted by technocratic geniuses with the ability to manipulate social media, whether it is possible to make a success of leaving the EU, how robots might be stopped from taking our work, what can be done to staunch the widening gap between rich and poor, and how to raise living standards for all.

Robert Peston is ITV’s political editor, presenter of Peston on Sunday, and founder of the education charity, Speakers for Schools. He has written three books, How Do We Fix This Mess?, Who Runs Britain? and Brown’s Britain. For a decade, until the end of 2015, he was economics and business editor at the BBC. Peston has won more than 30 awards for his journalism, including Journalist of the Year from the Royal Television Society.

Matthew d’Ancona is a British journalist and award-winning political columnist for the Guardian, London Evening Standard, Sunday Telegraph and International NYT. He was Deputy Editor of the Sunday Telegraph before becoming editor of The Spectator in 2006, named Editor of the Year (Current Affairs) in the 2007 BSME awards. He is a visiting research fellow at Queen Mary College and the author of several books, including In It Together: The Inside Story of the Coalition. He edited Being British: The Search for the Values That Bind the Nation. In 1989 he was elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He is also a trustee of the Science Museum Group.

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