Jeff William Randall (born 3 October 1954) is an English former business
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
and presenter, who presented ''
Jeff Randall Live'', a business and politics show on
Sky News, until stepping down from his role in March 2014. He was a columnist for ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'', and was the first business editor at
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
.
Early life
Randall was educated at what was then a traditional boys' grammar school, the
Royal Liberty School
The Royal Liberty School is a secondary school for boys aged 11 to 16, located in Gidea Park in the London Borough of Havering, England.
The school is situated on Upper Brentwood Road about 400 metres north of Gidea Park railway station, and ...
in
Romford
Romford is a large town in east London and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Historically, Romfo ...
, Essex, and at the
University of Nottingham
, mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom
, established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status
, type = Public
, chancellor ...
, graduating with a degree in economics.
[Biography – Jeff Randall]
Sky Press Office He started but did not finish postgraduate work in journalism at the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...
.
Career
Journalism
Randall worked as Assistant Editor of ''Financial Weekly'', then between 1986 and 1988 as
City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
correspondent for the ''
Sunday Telegraph''. From 1989 to 1994 he was City editor of ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'', becoming City and Business Editor 1994–95, as well as a Director of Times Newspapers. He was also a director of a City PR firm. He then became assistant editor and sports editor of the ''Sunday Times''.
[ Randall became the editor of the re-launched '']Sunday Business
''Sunday Business'' was a national Sunday broadsheet financial newspaper published in the United Kingdom, which ran from 1996 to 2006, when it was turned into a magazine called '' The Business''.
History
The newspaper was founded by Tom Rubyth ...
'' newspaper in 1998.
BBC
Randall moved to the BBC in 2001, as the corporation's first business editor. He appeared regularly on the ''BBC News at Ten
''BBC News at Ten'' formerly known as the ''BBC Ten O'Clock News'' or the ''Ten O'Clock News'' is the flagship evening news programme for the BBC News channel and British television channel BBC One on weekdays and Sundays at 10:00pm. Huw Edwa ...
'', the Today programme
''Today'', colloquially known as ''the Today programme'', is a long-running British morning news and current-affairs Radio program, radio programme on BBC Radio 4. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 6:00 am to 9:00 am, it is produced by BBC N ...
and BBC News 24
BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...
. In addition, he presented ''Weekend Business'', a radio show for 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...
. He resigned as BBC business editor in late 2005 to join the ''Daily Telegraph'' as 'editor-at-large'.[
He was replaced as BBC business editor by ]Robert Peston
Robert James Kenneth Peston (born 25 April 1960) is an English journalist, presenter, and author. He is the political editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show ''Peston'' (previously ''Peston on Sunday''). From 2006 u ...
, formerly associate editor at the ''Telegraph''. Randall has continued to work on BBC projects, including a documentary series on the City and financial turmoil for Radio Four. In addition, he has made television documentaries for ITV, and was the presenter of '' Jeff Randall Live'' on Sky News.
Randall has criticised the BBC for being biased and left wing. He noted an occasion when he wore Union Jack
The Union Jack, or Union Flag, is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. Although no law has been passed making the Union Flag the official national flag of the United Kingdom, it has effectively become such through precedent. ...
cufflinks
Cufflinks are items of jewelry that are used to secure the cuffs of dress shirts. Cufflinks can be manufactured from a variety of different materials, such as glass, stone, leather, metal, precious metal or combinations of these. Securing of ...
and a producer told him he could not wear them on air as it would be seen as an endorsement for the National Front. Randall also told of an occasion where he complained to a senior news executive about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance. In a reply he was told "The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it". He further criticised the bias of the BBC, stating that working at the BBC was "bit like walking into a Sunday meeting of the Flat Earth Society. As they discuss great issues of the day, they discuss them from the point of view that the earth is flat. If someone says, 'No, no, no, the earth is round!', they think this person is an extremist."
''Jeff Randall Live''
While working as the Daily Telegraph's editor-at-large, Randall began broadcasting for Sky News in September 2007, presenting the business show '' Jeff Randall Live''. The programme began on a weekly basis, airing on Monday evenings at 19:30,[ but in January 2009 he joined the channel on a permanent basis and the programme was aired Mondays to Thursdays at 19:00. At that time the world was experiencing an economic downturn, and in a trailer for the show, Randall claimed that the downturn was like nothing he had seen in 25 years of business journalism, and ends with the line "What would I do if I were in government? I'd resign!"
In early 2010, ''Jeff Randall Live'' moved to a custom-built studio in the ]City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
in the building called The Gherkin
30 St Mary Axe (previously known as the Swiss Re Building and informally known as the Gherkin) is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. W ...
, where the show continued to be broadcast four nights a week. In February 2014, it was announced that Randall was to leave Sky News to be replaced by ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
s business and city editor Ian King. Randall presented his last show for Sky News on Thursday 27 March 2014.
Other activities
Randall is a visiting fellow at Oxford University's business school, and has been awarded honorary doctorates of letters by Anglia Ruskin University
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after John Ruskin in ...
(2001), the University of Nottingham
, mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom
, established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status
, type = Public
, chancellor ...
(2006) and BPP University College (2011). He is also the twenty-ninth member of the University of Nottingham College of Benefactors, into which he was inducted in July 2010. He is an honorary professor at Nottingham University's Business School.
Since April 2014, when he retired from journalism, he has been a non-executive director of Babcock International, where he chairs the remuneration committee, and a director of Sandown Park Racecourse
Sandown Park is a horse racing course and leisure venue in Esher, Surrey, England, located in the outer suburbs of London. It hosts 5 Grade One National Hunt races and one Group 1 flat race, the Eclipse Stakes. It regularly has horse rac ...
. In July 2017 he became an independent non-executive at BDO, the accountancy firm.
Opinions
Writing for ''The Daily Telegraph'' at the time of the 2005 Conservative Party leadership election
The 2005 Conservative Party leadership election was called by party leader Michael Howard on 6 May 2005, when he announced that he would be stepping down as Leader of the Conservative Party in the near future following the party's third succe ...
, Randall said he would not trust David Cameron "with my daughter's pocket money. ..To describe Cameron's approach to corporate PR as unhelpful and evasive overstates by a widish margin the clarity and plain-speaking that he brought to the job of being Michael Green's mouthpiece. ..In my experience, Cameron never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative, which probably makes him perfectly suited for the role he now seeks: the next Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
."
In August 2007, he launched an attack in the ''Daily Telegraph'' on the Labour government, claiming that "the United Kingdom's authority as a sovereign nation has been greatly eroded, our democratic traditions trashed, and the make-up of our society put through the mangle of enforced multiculturalism – all without anything so vulgar as a plebiscite
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of ...
. Like geese being prepared for the production of foie gras
Foie gras (, ; ) is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. According to French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage (force feeding).
Foie gras is a popular and well-known delica ...
, we are having stuffed down our throats that which we do not wish to swallow: the rough corn of Labour's determination to make its changes irreversible. If we dare to complain, we're told that it's good for us."
Personal life
Randall is a supporter of the Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
football club, Rangers, which he once described as "the quintessential British club".[Football Diary: The best of British]
''The Daily Telegraph'', 2 March 2007 while his other interests include horseracing
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...
and golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...
.[Up close with the Barclays' 'consigliere']
''The Guardian'', 15 January 2006
Randall has lived in Brentwood, Essex since 1984 with his wife. He has a daughter who was born in 1989.[
]
References
External links
Jeff Randall's farewell to 30 years of financial journalism
The Telegraph, 28 December 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Randall, Jeff
1954 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Nottingham
Academics of the University of Wolverhampton
University of Florida alumni
English newspaper editors
English male journalists
BBC newsreaders and journalists
Sky News newsreaders and journalists
British business and financial journalists
People educated at the Royal Liberty Grammar School