Pooch proves Peston has found love

ROBERT PESTON went public with his writer girlfriend Charlotte Edwardes yesterday – and I can reveal their relationship is so serious they have bought a dog together. The pair have been rumoured to be dating since last year but have so far avoided being photographed and never confirmed a romance beyond saying they are ‘close friends’. Early in their relationship, the media power couple even deleted flirtatious Twitter exchanges after I gently asked if they were dating. But yesterday the Peston On Sunday presenter was all smiles when we met at Pup Aid 2017 in London’s Primrose Hill, near Robert’s Muswell Hill home. He even introduced adorable grey-haired lurcher Merlin as ‘our dog’.

When I asked if owning Merlin with Charlotte, 45, might suggest their relationship is so serious an engagement could be on the cards, ‘Pesto’, 57, only giggled and shrugged.

But judging by the kisses they exchanged all day, he is entirely relaxed in Charlotte’s company and with her three young children, two of whom joined them yesterday. With Merlin in tow, the four were a picture of familial bliss.

They left together in the direction of Regent’s Park, with Robert and Charlotte hand-in-hand. At one point, she affectionately rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist, a gesture he returned while holding Merlin’s lead in his other hand.

Friends who were concerned for the ITV political editor’s wellbeing after his wife Sian Busby – mother to his son Maximillian, 16 – died from lung cancer in 2012, will be delighted to see him so happy.

Charlotte and Robert have known each other since 2003 and Robert has said of her: ‘She is brilliant and funny, and we are very

close.’