Robert Peston warned against 'dressing down' by BBC colleague Justin Webb

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/13/robert-peston-bbc-justin-webb

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Today presenter Justin Webb has warned his outgoing BBC colleague Robert Peston about the perils of dressing down after Peston, about to jump ship to ITV, said it was “bonkers” that people expected him to wear a tie.

Webb, who admitted to sometimes donning a T-shirt and jeans while broadcasting on the Radio 4 breakfast programme, said dressing down could lead to “major sloppiness”.

“There is something about informal dress that relaxes everything, including the mind,” Webb wrote in the latest issue of Radio Times. “Formality … does concentrate the mind.”

Related: Robert Peston is wrong – wearing a tie is a sign of respect | Henry Conway

His comments came after Peston responded to criticism last month that he had not worn a tie in recent TV appearances including a visit to China and a stint presenting Newsnight.

“Last week I got a lot of stick for not having a tie on when interviewing the Chancellor. Personally, I think these TV conventions are nuts,” he said.

“I didn’t not wear a tie out of disrespect for the Chancellor, I just didn’t wear a tie because actually I don’t really like wearing a tie. The notion that what makes you a serious journalist is wearing a tie is bonkers.”

Peston will take up a new role as ITV’s political editor later this year, after a decade at the BBC, as well as presenting a new ITV talkshow, Peston on Sunday.

He is not the first BBC news presenter to question the worth of the tie, once dubbed by former Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman “an utterly useless part of the male wardrobe. The only people who wear the things daily are male politicians, the male reporters who interview them – and dodgy estate agents”.

Webb wrote: “Memo to Robert Peston: do not on any account be tempted to present your new show naked. Yes, it would cause a stir, and we know you are not averse to causing stirs, but the tie-less one should be warned that – as Alex Ferguson has suggested in these pages – dressing down can lead to major sloppiness.

“There is something about informal dress that relaxes everything, including the mind. You tend, in jeans, to let anything go.

“I remember the immaculately suited Labour politician Chuka Umunna’s look of bemusement when he came in one Saturday to find Evan Davis and me giggling in T-shirts during the news bulletin. ‘Blimey,’ we said, ‘what are you wearing?’. And we giggled some more.

“But when it came to talking he was as sharp as his suit and we were as lax as our jeans. Formality ... does concentrate the mind.”