Peter Jay

Peter Jay (7 February 1937 – 22 September 2024) was an English journalist, broadcaster, and economist. He served as the British Ambassador to the United States from 1977 to 1979 during the prime-ministership of his father-in-law, James Callaghan.

After leaving public life, Jay became the founding chairman of the breakfast television station TV-am and was Chief of Staff to Robert Maxwell. He served as a governor of the Ditchley Foundation from 1982 to 1987 and as a non-executive director of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2009.

Early life and education Peter Jay was born in Hampstead, London, on 7 February 1937, the son of Douglas Jay, who fifty years later was created a life peer as Baron Jay, and Peggy Jay, both of whom were Labour politicians. He was privately educated, firstly at the Dragon School, Oxford (the school of several senior Labour politicians, including Hugh Gaitskell), and then Winchester College.

Jay studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in PPE.

He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Reserve as part of his National Service, where he was a Midshipman and then Sub-lieutenant. He then worked as a civil servant at HM Treasury before becoming a journalist and for ten years was the economics editor of The Times.

Career In the early 1970s, Jay became the principal presenter of the London Weekend Television Sunday news analysis programme Weekend World. He co-authored, with his friend John Birt, a series of articles for The Times in 1972, in which they criticised standard television journalism and developed what came to be called their "mission to explain".

In 1977, during his father-in-law James Callaghan's term as Prime Minister, Jay was recommended for the post of Ambassador to the United States by his friend David Owen, the Foreign Secretary.

While his father was closely linked with Keynesian economics, Jay increasingly identified himself with the new "monetarian" school associated with Milton Friedman, a man with whom he was close friends. Jay also debated with Friedman and Thomas Sowell, including two episodes of Friedman's TV series Free to Choose (1980). Jay was also the moderator of the discussions in the British version of Free to Choose. Jay was credited with helping write James Callaghan's speech at the 1976 Labour Party Conference. The speech is seen as something of a turning point, with Callaghan declaring: "We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists", a rejection of the previously dominant Keynesian logic and a reflection of the ascendency of monetarism.

Between June 2003 and May 2009, Jay was a non-executive director of the Bank of England. He was a governor of the Ditchley Foundation from 1982 until 1987, and was formerly a councillor on Woodstock town council and served as the town's mayor from 2008 to 2010. In 1986 Jay married his second wife, Emma Bettina, daughter of the museum curator and writer Peter Thornton.

Jay had seven children, one of whom was as a result of an affair with his children's nanny. Jay initially refused to accept paternity, but a DNA test proved the point and he paid for the child's maintenance.