Robin Aitken worked as a BBC reporter for 25 years ending up on the Today programme. He left the Corporation in 2005 to write a book Can We trust the BBC? which was highly critical of the BBC’s internal culture which, he said, was skewed by a liberal-left bias.

After the book was published he became involved in setting up the Oxford Food Bank - one of the UK’s only sustainable food banks. It gathers ‘surplus’ food from supermarkets and wholesalers and gives it to charities and individuals. An entirely voluntary organisation last year it gave away more than £1million worth of food. He was awarded an MBE this year for services to vulnerable people. He has been critical of the public debate about food banks which he thinks has been unscrupulous in its use of statistics and has become over-politicised.  Robin also works as a freelance journalism – most recently for the BBC.