The Slow Newscast: Recent Episodes
Tortoise Media
The Slow Newscast from Tortoise takes news slowly. We investigate, we report, and every week we try to focus on the stories that really matter in the UK and around the world.
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Frank Hester has given the largest donations to the Conservative party in history. Even with the party's popularity at rock bottom with the public, on the cusp of potentially entering a period in opposition, Frank Hester has continued to prove a lucrative donor to the party. How is it that the Conservative party has come to be so reliant on the money of one man?
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Apple’s latest advert was a disaster. What does it tell us about the company’s future under Tim Cook – and about the relationship between the people who make technology and the rest of us?
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Rishi Sunak and the Conservative party are far behind in the polls. There are no good options for Rishi Sunak to call an early election, so why now? This is the story of the day - and the year - leading to his decision, and what it reveals bout a Prime Minister who's not known for taking risks.
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Donald Trump is the first former US president to be convicted of a crime.
In a special one-off, we will be sharing our new series Word for Word: Trump on Trial. In each episode, we’re bringing you the story of the trial, told using the transcripts of what is said in court. This is the final part.
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Donald Trump is the first former US president to face a criminal trial. He is accused of falsifying his business records by saying a hush money payment to a porn star was for legal fees. He's facing 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them. The trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, is being held in a New York court and Donald Trump has to appear for every day. This is the story of that trial, told using the transcripts of what is said in court. Michael Cohen is on the stand.
Frank Falzon as Michael Cohen.
Art Brown as Todd Blanche.
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Donald Trump is the first former US president to face a criminal trial. He is accused of falsifying his business records by saying a hush money payment to a porn star was for legal fees. He's facing 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them. The trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, is being held in a New York court and Donald Trump has to appear for every day. This is the story of that trial, told using the transcripts of what is said in court. Michael Cohen is on the stand.
Frank Falzon as Michael Cohen.
Skye Alley as Susan Hoffinger.
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Donald Trump is the first former US president to face a criminal trial. He is accused of falsifying his business records by saying a hush money payment to a porn star was for legal fees. He's facing 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them. The trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, is being held in a New York court and Donald Trump has to appear for every day. This is the story of that trial, told using the transcripts of what is said in court. Stormy Daniels is on the stand.
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The Sackler family made billions from the opioid painkiller OxyContin, which played a significant part in the opioid epidemic. The Sacklers have been blamed for fuelling the crisis, but have they really been held accountable – or are they getting away with it?
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Donald Trump is the first former US president to face a criminal trial. He is accused of of falsifying his business records by saying a hush money payment to a porn star was for legal fees. He's facing 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them. The trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, is being held in a New York court and Donald Trump has to appear for every day. This is the story of that trial, told using the transcripts of what is said in court.
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A year ago the Confederation of British Industry was at the centre of a media storm and a crisis at the organisation quickly ensued. Members left in droves, dozens of staff lost their jobs, board members stepped down, and staff felt unsafe in the workplace. But what really happened? Barney Macintyre and Rebecca Moore investigate.
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Boeing once ruled the skies. Now they find themselves in the middle of a scandal, without public trust and their reputation in free-fall. This is the story of where it all went wrong.
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In the early days of the invasion, Russia took over Europe's biggest nuclear power station. For two years, Zaporizhzhia's nuclear plant has been under Russian control, and while a nuclear crisis has so far been averted, the fighting has repeatedly threatened a catastrophic situation. The employees are overcoming the threat of torture to manage the plant's safety. This is the story of what happens when a nuclear power station becomes a pawn in a war.
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At his height Jimmy Lai was a newspaper owner and tycoon who loved to cause trouble. But he’s been behind bars for more than a thousand days with no end in sight. The Hong Kong authorities, assisted by Beijing, seem determined to silence him. Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. This is the story of one man’s efforts to take on the Chinese state.
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Introducing...To Die For
Imagine you were a fly on the wall at a dinner between the mafia, the CIA, and the KGB. That’s where this unprecedented story begins. A journey through the dark world of Russian intelligence where, for the first time, a professed “sex spy” tells her story. All of it.
Host Neil Strauss (Rolling Stone, The New York Times) brings listeners into the dangerous world of sexpionage, where enemies of the State are not the only victims. So too are the spies themselves, brainwashed to believe that their bodies belong to Russia and meticulously trained to become “the perfect weapons.” From the creators of the #1 hit podcast series To Live and Die in LA, this is To Die For.
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Shortly before Vladimir Putin was reelected for a fifth term as Russia’s president he eliminated his last possible rival for power, Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in an Arctic labour camp. The deaths, often in mysterious circumstances, of dozens of Putin's opponents have been a hallmark of his time in office. Tortoise’s Giles Whittell sets out to find out why so many of Putin’s enemies have met an early end.
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Shortly before Vladimir Putin was reelected for a fifth term as Russia’s president he eliminated his last possible rival for power, Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in an Arctic labour camp. The deaths, often in mysterious circumstances, of dozens of Putin's opponents have been a hallmark of his time in office. Tortoise’s Giles Whittell sets out to find out why so many of Putin’s enemies have met an early end.
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Shortly before Vladimir Putin was re-elected for a fifth term as Russia’s president he eliminated his last possible rival for power, Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in an Arctic labour camp. The deaths, often in mysterious circumstances, of dozens of Putin's opponents have been a hallmark of his time in office. Tortoise’s Giles Whittell sets out to find out why so many of Putin’s enemies have met an early end.
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The energy drink company has built a billion-dollar brand promoting extreme sports like BASE jumping. Who’s responsible when it goes wrong?
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Benjamin Netanyahu has arguably shaped his country's image more than anyone else in the world. But his actions have put at risk Israel's relationship with its closest allies and potential partners for peace.
In this, the final episode of the series, Donald Macintyre looks into Benjanmin Netanyahu's leadership from 2023 until the present day.
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Benjamin Netanyahu has arguably shaped his country's image more than anyone else in the world. But his actions have put at risk Israel's relationship with its closest allies and potential partners for peace. This is the second episode in our three-part series, as Donald Macintyre looks into a pivotal period in Netanyahu's leadership, the eleven year period from 2009 right up until the pandemic, 2020
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To get the full series now, download the Tortoise app.
Benjamin Netanyahu has arguably shaped his country's image more than anyone else in the world. But his actions have put at risk Israel's relationship with its closest allies and potential partners for peace.
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Modern brokerage firms in the City are an echo of another age. Not just because they still rely on people - rather than technology - to facilitate trade, but also because they have never shaken off the reputation of a culture of excess and bad behaviour.
The City regulator, the FCA, has been aware for years that there’s an issue with some broking firms.
This is the story of what happens behind closed doors in one company.
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Anna Wintour is one of the most important people in fashion. She is arguably one of the world's most influential and powerful people. A brand in her own right. But aged 74 and tasked with saving a global legacy media company in a digital age, is this a step too far for the last great editor?
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To listen to episode two follow the Tortoise Investigates feed. To get the full series now, download the Tortoise app.
What comes to mind when you think of Amber Heard? Liar? Survivor? Narcissist? Millions of us watched the celebrity trial of the century, Depp v Heard, in 2022.
Amber Heard lost and Johnny Depp was vindicated. But what if Amber was actually the victim of an organised trolling campaign? What if the online hate against her was manufactured?
Alexi Mostrous, the reporter who brought you Sweet Bobby and Hoaxed, investigates what happened to Amber and who might have been responsible. It’s a story about how our own thoughts and opinions can be moulded without us even realising.
This is episode one.
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In a town in Kent, there is a place where vulnerable and volatile boys are locked away for "days on end", where weapons are widespread and living conditions are dire. All on the government's watch. This is the story of the chaos behind locked doors.
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This episode was first published in March 2022.
In early 2021 Alexei Navalny and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya returned to Russia where a year earlier he had been poisoned with Novichok nerve agent. It was a decision that likely led directly to his death. On arrival in Moscow Alexei and Yulia were separated. He was detained, put on trial and ended up in one of Russia’s toughest penal colonies where he died. This is their story.
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Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager, campaigned successfully to topple Harvard’s first black leader, Claudine Gay, in a row over anti-semitism. But his mission is much grander, he’s spearheading a broader backlash against ‘woke’ politics that is energising the American right, fracturing the left and upending society.
Since the recording of this podcast, Yashcha Mounk has been accused, on X, of sexual assault and suspended from the editorial board of Die Zeit and by The Atlantic magazine. He has “categorically “ denied the allegation.
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When a man in Birmingham died unexpectedly last year, a question was asked: was he assassinated? At first, it sounds unbelievable, but as the story unfolds the answer becomes less clear and the world more complicated. This is the story of India's assassins.
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The two most charismatic leaders in a generation took Scotland to the brink of independence. But when Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon's powerful partnership collapsed, with it went their hold on a nation. This is the story of the fallout.
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The two most charismatic leaders in a generation took Scotland to the brink of independence. But when Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon's powerful partnership collapsed, with it went their hold on a nation.
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Paul Caruana Galizia investigates a new dimension to the phone hacking story; allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper group hacked phones not for tabloid headlines but for corporate reasons.
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From Harry and Meghan to David Beckham and Lizzo, our TV screens are awash with celebrity documentaries like never before. But what story are they telling – and who’s behind them?
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It may be a re-fight of the 2020 elections, but in this year's US presidential elections, the stakes feel much higher. And that's got a lot of Democrats worrying. This is the story of the backroom discussions going on trying to work out the answer to one question: is Joe Biden the right man to lead the Dems and take on Donald Trump?
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Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader is up. The party faces an uphill battle to mount a credible challenge to the Conservative majority at the next election. So who will the party turn to in its hour of need? And what will that person do with all the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn left in the party?
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Parliament can’t find a way through the Brexit labyrinth. Jeremy Corbyn’s position is as muddy as ever. Keir Starmer, now Shadow Brexit Secretary, openly defies his leader’s position. But the rise of Boris Johnson and a snap election forces Corbyn on to the back foot.
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An old Facebook comment from Jeremy Corbyn resurfaces. The Labour leader is forced to to explain why he publicly supported a graffiti artist accused of painting an antisemitic mural in East London. Allegations of antisemitism against Corbyn’s Labour Party grow. Some Jewish Labour MPs are exposed to abuse and death threats. Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury lead some to question his suitability to be PM.
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Jeremy Corbyn faces an unexpected general election, called by Theresa May. Against the odds Labour does better than expected, although it’s still not the biggest party in Westminster. But Jeremy Corbyn’s star is undimmed. He is greeted with a rapturous reception on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.
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Murmurings of discontent grow among some Labour MPs. The blame the Brexit referendum result on Jeremy Corbyn’s half hearted campaigning efforts. They launch a dramatic attempt to get rid of him. Sir Keir Starmer has to decide who he’s going to back.
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In 2015 Labour is back in opposition after another election defeat. The party needs a new leader. It chooses Jeremy Corbyn, a long serving left-wing MP who’s never run anything. He is the party’s most radical and unlikely leader in its history. The newly elected former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer, takes a job under Corbyn as a shadow minister.
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The story of motherhood is strangely absent from a lot of literature. After her own experience of childbirth, Catherine Nixey takes on millennia of canonical literature and asks: why the start of the story is never fully told?
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Arifa Akbar lost her sister far too young. She died from a 19th century illness in a 21st century hospital. Arifa’s journey through grief takes her to Rome, Keats…and gentle words of reflection.
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Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner calls herself an “effective altruist”. That philosophical movement fuelled the firing and rehiring of Sam Altman last month – and has tried to steer the future of AI to the tune of half a billion dollars.
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President Assad has won the war in Syria and to consolidate his power he’s demolishing opposition neighbourhoods in order to create a shiny new Syria - one in which dissent never existed.
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From the middle of Sep 2020 to the end of October, Boris Johnson’s government dithered and delayed the decision over a second national lockdown. This is the story of those 43 days, laid bare at the Covid Inquiry: a story of chaos.
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This is the inside story of two revolutions in the Labour party in eight short years. From the takeover by the far left under Jeremy Corbyn to the election of Keir Starmer who set about erasing all traces of his predecessor.
To listen to the full series subscribe to the feed.
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To listen to the full series subscribe to the Tortoise Investigates feed.
It’s London, 2012. Oliver is a dashing diplomat. Charlie is a young graduate trying to find her feet in the world. They meet online and she falls in love. A few months into the relationship, and with his encouragement, Charlie applies for a job in British intelligence. She's feeling optimistic, the interview goes well. Then, she receives a text message that turns her life - and her relationship - upside down.
10 years later, a mystery is still hanging over her.
Walter's War is an investigation into what happened next – a journey through big tech and national security, hype and hucksterism, where anyone who can tell a good story can go far. But how much is true?
This is episode one of four. To continue listening to Walter's War just search for Tortoise Investigates. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists, download the free Tortoise audio app.
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The deal between Kanye West and Adidas was no ordinary celebrity endorsement. Now under renewed scrutiny after West’s outrageous behaviour, how can one rapper’s departure cause such chaos at a multinational sportswear brand?
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Paul Caruana Galizia investigates how a lucrative contract to run the UK’s National Lottery was awarded to a company whose Czech billionaire owner retains links with Russia.
Note: Clive Efford MP referred to “a Gazprom owned oil storage unit in the Czech Republic”. It was in fact a “Gazprom owned gas storage unit”.
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Mohammed Deif – thought to be the mastermind behind Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th - hasn’t been seen for 20 years and no one’s even sure if he’s still alive. When the enemy is more of an idea than a person, who do you end up fighting?
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A British doctor sparks a global health panic about the safety of vaccines. But even though his work is discredited, he lights a fire that becomes the modern anti-vax movement.
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The Telegraph is for sale for the first time in a generation. The new owner will become one of the most influential people on the right in Britain. Who will win the race?
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It’s been a dangerous year in the world of extreme mountaineering. Has the focus on record-breaking gone too far?
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Twenty years ago, Rudy Giuliani was “America’s mayor”. Now he’s been indicted, along with Donald Trump, for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Will Rudy die in jail for The Don?
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Twenty years ago, Rudy Giuliani was “America’s mayor”. Now he’s been indicted, along with Donald Trump, for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Will Rudy die in jail for The Don?
For early and ad-free access, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts.
If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Twenty years ago, Rudy Giuliani was “America’s mayor”. Now he’s been indicted, along with Donald Trump, for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Will Rudy die in jail for The Don?
For early and ad-free access, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts.
If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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For years, Claire McEnery was the most senior woman in the Lancashire police force. With that seniority came exposure to the best – and worst – of life, but also to the best and worst of the police.
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Welcome to Trendy, the new weekly show from Tortoise.
Britain’s top pollster, Sir John Curtice, and former Downing Street advisor, Rachel Wolf, explore the key political, social and economic trends that help shape what voters think and what politicians do.
Follow the feed here so you don't miss an episode.
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Earlier this year, when the media went into a frenzy about the rift between the royal brothers and the publication of Harry's book Spare Paul Caruana Galizia started looking into a different aspect of the story. One that wasn't getting much attention: Prince Harry’s legal battles with the press. Then in April a new story emerged from that fight. It attracted a brief flurry of interest before seeming to drop out of sight. It was just a line in Prince Harry's court filings, but an extraordinary one: in a sworn statement Prince Harry said that his brother, Prince William, had privately settled his own phone hacking claim with Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers for "a large sum of money". The Palace didn't deny it; nor did News Group. And it suddenly felt like the real story was only just emerging. A story not about Prince Harry but about Prince William, about the wider Royal family, and above all, about secrecy. But once again it’s a story that no-one seems to be going after.
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From intern to baroness in seven years, Charlotte Owen’s entry to the House of Lords has left even friends scratching their heads in wonder. Her elevation might be hard to explain, but it tells us volumes about the way British democracy works.
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Humans think of themselves as the world’s apex predator. But what happens when another powerful carnivore threatens us in a place where they are the masters? Killer whales have been attacking - and sometimes sinking - sailboats off the coast of Spain and Portugal. This is the story of the changing relationship between humanity and the world’s biggest predator.
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In late June, Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow with a small army of mercenaries. Exactly two months later, he was dead. This is the story of what really happened on the road to Moscow.
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In June a scandal erupted that threatened the future of snooker after ten elite players were banned for match fixing. It all starts in a small snooker hall in Sheffield, but ends on a journey through a several hundred billion dollar a year black market in south-east Asia. This is how snooker uncovered the biggest British match fixing scandal in over a decade.
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Cities are where the battle to save planet earth will be won and lost. But it is not the urban environment that matters, but our relationship with nature within it. What can the story of one dying river, plagued by sewage and indifference, and the campaign to save it, teach us about how to reconnect with and value nature?
In 2017 the MeToo movement swept through Hollywood. Some men, such as Harvey Weinstein, went to prison. Others who were accused of sexual misconduct and assault were ostracised and struggled to find parts in big movies. But six years on some of these same people are back on the red carpets. Is Hollywood trying to rewrite history?
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A family's six-year fight for a pioneering legal decision
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For almost three decades, one of the world's most wanted men had stayed at large. Earlier this year, he was finally caught. This is the story of how a small band of genocide hunters caught him in a world riddled with secrets, espionage and a $5 million bounty.
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In May this year David Boyd was found guilty of the brutal murder of seven year-old Nikki Allan in 1992. Why did it take the police thirty years to find Boyd and get a conviction? This is the story of Nikki’s mother, Sharon Henderson, who has spent thirty years searching for her daughter’s murderer to have him put on trial.
Today we're publishing this new series so that listeners of the Slow Newscast can listen early but if you like what you hear and you want to listen to episode two straight away just search for 'Three doors down' and head straight to the feed.
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Slow Newscast host Basia Cummings is in the editor's chair for this episode of The News Meeting. The podcast where three journalists each pitch the one story they think matters most and the editor decides which one should lead the news. In it, we open up the conversations we have all the time in our newsroom about what’s important and why, and what should lead the news. The very kinds of conversations that ultimately decide what stories we tell on the Slow Newscast.
In this episode Basia is joined by Cat Neilan, Claudia Williams and Stephen Armstrong who pitch rising mortgage rates, migrant boats missing in the Atlantic and catastrophic weather in the US.
Follow The News Meeting here so you don't miss future episodes.
Spanish celebrity Ana Obregón shocked the world when she announced that she had a child via surrogate, using a donor egg and the sperm of her deceased son. Her story takes us to the new frontiers of fertility, where technology challenges our ideas of family, motherhood and the law.
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Crispin Odey was one of the most powerful hedge funders in London. He’s been dismissed from his own company which is being wound up after he was accused of assaulting more than a dozen women over many decades. Why did so many institutions apparently turn a blind eye and do nothing for so long - even though these allegations had trailed him for years?
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Rob Moore had a successful career in television until one day he ran out of ideas. After a stint as a gardener, a more enticing door was opened for him. He was offered a job in the shadowy world of corporate intelligence - he became a spy.
Tasked with working undercover to extract information from an environmental campaign group, Rob Moore says he eventually became sympathetic to the campaigners’ aims. He decided to turn on his employers and support the group he was meant to be infiltrating. Only it wasn’t that straightforward. He never told the campaigners who he really was and he never told his spymasters what he was really doing. Neither side knew the whole truth.
That was until 2016, when after years of being in control of these two disparate worlds he was unexpectedly outed. Now, the campaigners see him as a traitor who betrayed their trust. He sees himself as a misunderstood whistleblower.
From the team that brought you Sweet Bobby, and over three years in the making, Into The Dirt is a story about truth, spies and the stories we tell ourselves. Today we're publishing this new series so that listeners of the Slow Newscast can listen early but if you like what you hear and you want to listen to episode two straight away just search for Into The Dirt and head to the feed.
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Bill Gates was the golden philanthropist at the top of the billionaire's league - he was also Epstein's way back into society
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Last year journalist Polly Curtis spent months trying to understand what went wrong at the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service for young people. You can hear her Tortoise podcast series: Inside the Tavistock here. In the reporting of that series one thing kept coming up: some young people who couldn’t - for whatever reason - access the Tavistock - the only NHS service in England for young people with gender dysphoria, were going down the private healthcare route. So what happens if a young person follows that path? This is the story of Gender GP and its founder, Helen Webberley, an entrepreneurial doctor from south Wales.
Leon Black was the aggressive private equity billionaire at the top of New York society - he also bankrolled Epstein
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After Epstein was dropped by JP Morgan, another bank stepped in to help his sex trafficking empire keep rolling
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Jes Staley was one of the most powerful men in banking – he was also Jeffrey Epstein’s protector
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Boris Johnson is not a man who has much care for institutions or conventions. So what does his forthcoming resignations honours list mean for the future of the House of Lords?
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Why is the Kremlin forcibly deporting tens of thousands of children to Russia?
Tortoise is a newsroom devoted to slow journalism. For early access and ad-free listening subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or join Tortoise for £60 a year.
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In February this year, the Telegraph newspaper revealed that Roald Dahl's publisher had “updated” some of his stories for young readers and modern audiences. The news went viral – to some it was the moment the world went mad; to others an exaggerated fuss over nothing.
But it put the publishing industry in the spotlight, and soon questions were being raised about another, more contemporary author – and known provocateur. David Walliams. In this episode we're asking the question facing publishers around the world: how do you keep a lucrative cultural asset from getting cancelled?
Tortoise is a newsroom devoted to slow journalism. For early access and ad-free listening subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or join Tortoise for £60 a year.
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A new Tortoise investigation into how the country’s most distressed and vulnerable children are being abandoned by the state.
Tortoise is a newsroom devoted to slow journalism.
For early access and ad-free listening subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or join Tortoise for £60 a year.
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South Africa was once a symbol of hope. Now the country experiences regular blackouts. This is the story of how the lights went out in Mandela’s country – and how criminal gangs and flawed political leadership are holding back the world’s efforts to deal with climate change.
Tortoise is a newsroom devoted to slow journalism.
For early access and ad-free listening subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or join Tortoise for £60 a year.
As a member you’ll also get our newsletters and tickets to live events. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/slowdown.
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Towards the end of last year the Director General of MI5, Ken Mcallum, warned that the security services knew of at least ten attempts to kidnap or kill UK-based enemies of the regime in Iran. That number is now even higher. Paul Caruana Galizia investigates why Iran wants to silence its critics on the streets of London.
To listen to episode 2 of the series click this link.
Or for early access and ad-free listening subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or join Tortoise for £60 a year.
As a member you’ll also get our newsletters and tickets to live events. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/slowdown.
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In 2014, a Jordanian man was imprisoned in a prison in Ras Al Khaimah, the northernmost Emirate in the UAE. He alleges he has been illegally detained and threatened. And the man he blames for this is a British lawyer. This is the story of the UK lawyer facing some of the most serious allegations ever levelled against a member of his profession.
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If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.
The European Research Group was once the most consequential faction in the Conservative party, playing a central role in bringing down former prime minister Theresa May and installing Boris Johnson in Number 10. And yet, in a recent test of strength, the Brexit hardliners stumbled. This is the story of what happened to the ERG.
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If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.
In the early hours of the morning of the 5 December 2022, a shot – a pulse – was fired that could save the world. It was a shot that achieved what fusion scientists had been seeking for more than half a century. They call it ignition, and it could solve the an energy crisis that’s becoming existential for humanity. This is the story of those precious seconds and the decades leading up to it.
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If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.
John Williams Ntwali, one of the last critical journalists in Rwanda, died in suspicious circumstances just before Suella Braverman, the British home secretary, flew in to Kigali to sell the country as a “safe” place to send asylum seekers and migrants.
Become a Tortoise member for just £60 a year to receive early and ad-free access to all our award-winning audio journalism, as well as our Sensemaker newsletters and tickets to live events. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/slowdown today.
If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.
Boris Johnson seems incapable of living within his means – but talented beyond measure at finding people to help him live beyond them. So just who is funding the ex PM? This is the brand of Boris Johnson.
Become a Tortoise member for just £60 a year to receive early and ad-free access to all our award-winning audio journalism, as well as our Sensemaker newsletters and tickets to live events. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/slowdown today.
If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.
Eight months after his daughter’s wedding to Brooklyn Beckham, billionaire Nelson Peltz filed a lawsuit against two wedding planners demanding a refund. So what happens when you treat a wedding like a billion-dollar business deal?
Become a Tortoise member for just £60 a year to receive early and ad-free access to all our award-winning audio journalism, as well as our Sensemaker newsletters and tickets to live events. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/slowdown today.
If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.”
Boris Johnson seems incapable of living within his means – but talented beyond measure at finding people to help him live beyond them. So just who is funding the ex PM? And how does he get to all his exotic holidays?
This is the third episode of a four-part series investigating Boris' finances.
To listen to episodes early, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts where you will also get ad-free listening and exclusive access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows.
Tortoise is a newsroom devoted to slow journalism. You can join Tortoise as a member for £60 a year.
As a member you’ll also get our newsletters and tickets to live events. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/slowdown.
If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable.
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For five years a British citizen has been locked up in an Indian prison, and the British state hasn’t been willing – or not strong enough – to stand up for him
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. To access more of our journalism and get invites to exclusive events you can join Tortoise as a member.Visit www.tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow60 for a special offer today.
This is the story of a politician incapable of living within his means but talented beyond measure at finding people to help him live beyond them. It’s the story of how that dependence on others sullied him and them. All of which leads to one simple question: just who is funding Boris Johnson? Episode 2 is the story of the enablers.
This is the second episode of a three part series investigating Boris' finances. To listen to episodes three early, subscribe toTortoise+ on Apple Podcastswhere you will also get ad-free listening and exclusive access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows. Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. Join our newsroom as a member, for access to all of our audio and written journalism and invitations to exclusive events.Visitwww.tortoisemedia.com/friendand use the code Slow60 for a special offer today.
What happened inside Fox News in those critical weeks following Donald Trump’s election defeat in 2020?
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. To access more of our journalism and get invites to exclusive events you can join Tortoise as a member.Visit www.tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow60 for a special offer today.
This is the story of a politician incapable of living within his means but talented beyond measure at finding people to help him live beyond them. It’s the story of how that dependence on others sullied him and them. All of which leads to one simple question: just who is funding Boris Johnson?
This is the first episode of a three part series investigating Boris' finances. To listen to episodes two and three early, subscribe toTortoise+ on Apple Podcastswhere you will also get ad-free listening and exclusive access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows. Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. Join our newsroom as a member, for access to all of our audio and written journalism and invitations to exclusive events.Visitwww.tortoisemedia.com/friendand use the code Slow60 for a special offer today.
Warning: This episode describes domestic abuse and a death by falling.
When a woman falls out of a window, on an estate that’s been abandoned by the council, how do you find out what really happened? And who do you believe?
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. To access more of our journalism and get invites to exclusive events you can join Tortoise as a member.Visit www.tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow60 for a special offer today.
First they were known as the “little green men”, an anonymous private Russian force appearing first in Crimea, then Syria, then in central Africa. Now, they are on the frontline of Putin’s war in Ukraine. Just how powerful is the Wagner Group and their increasingly vocal founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin?
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The Harry show – the bestselling memoir, the Netflix documentary, the rounds of television interviews – isn’t over. In fact, it’s only just begun: the prince’s legal claims against Britain’s biggest media groups are headed to court this summer
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Following a brutal killing in north London in 2016, two innocent men, Patryk and Grzegorz, who had just arrived from Poland, were handed a life sentence for a murder they didn’t commit. This week’s Slow Newscast tells their story: a remarkable miscarriage of justice, and a feeble effort by the law to correct itself.
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What do you do when your children are taken away by your ex-partner? Who do you call for help? And how do you get them back?
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The Christian Legal Centre is behind some of the most tragic cases in the British courts helping parents fight against hospitals in life support cases. Who are they – and what do they want?
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Introducing: 'Real Money: The hunt for Tether's billions'. To listen to episode two of the series, click this link.
The dream of cryptocurrencies is in danger of imploding along with their value. If the crypto coin that supports the whole market goes under it could drag the entire system down with it. That coin is called Tether.
Introducing...The News Meeting from Podimo and Tortoise.
In every newsroom around the world there’s a daily meeting to decide what leads the news, what follows and in what order. As editor of The Times newspaper, director of BBC News and now editor-in-chief of Tortoise, James Harding has been in countless news meetings behind closed doors. But in this podcast, we’re flinging the doors open so you can hear the argument for yourself. Three journalists pitch the story they think mattered most this week and James decides the running order.
New episodes are released every Friday.
Follow The News Meeting wherever you get your podcasts
Over £183 million of outside funds has flowed into this parliament alone, with no way of fully understanding who’s getting what, from whom, and why. Until now. This is the story of the money flowing into our politics, hidden in plain sight.
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Nasa wants to put people back on the moon, half a century after Apollo 11. Its Artemis moon mission is over-budget, overhyped and underpowered – it might even be the end of Nasa as we know it.
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One sleuth, two notebooks – and a 20-year puzzle
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Door after door in Britain has been opened for Evgeny Lebedev, all the way to the House of Lords. Who has opened them, and why?
To listen to the 'Londongrad' series follow this link.
The inside story of a troubled company that was bought by the world’s richest man.
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One of Britain’s richest and most powerful men was cleared of sexual assault last year. Four more women have now come forward with similar allegations that Crispin Odey, a major donor to the Conservative party, sexually assaulted them. Other women allege that he sexually harassed them at the offices of his Mayfair hedge fund company.
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Introducing – The Tavistock: inside the gender clinic.
In a few months, the Tavistock – the only NHS clinic in England and Wales which treats children suffering from gender dysphoria – will close. This is the story of what happened.
This is episode 1 of our new investigative series. To listen to episode 2 today, search The Tavistock: inside the gender clinic or click here: https://podfollow.com/the-tavistock-inside-the-gender-clinic and follow the feed for future episodes
You can listen to the first three episodes now ad-free and get access to exclusive bonus content coming soon by subscribing to Tortoise+ on Apple podcasts or joining Tortoise as a member. Just visit the Tortoise website and use the code BASIA50 for half price membership.
One of Britain’s biggest trade unions has built a hotel in Birmingham at vast cost. Following the threads which explain why it became so wildly expensive leads inevitably to a surprising place: to Liverpool. And to questions which could hurt the Labour party.
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Big money and bad science: what happens when science and medical research meet Wall Street?
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Big money and bad science: what happens when science and medical research meet Wall Street?
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The story of one man, fighting to his last breath, to reveal the darkness that lies behind this year’s UN Climate Change Conference.
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The story of one man, fighting to his last breath, to reveal the darkness that lies behind this year’s UN Climate Change Conference.
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The inside story of how the shortest premiership in British history came to an end
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The inside story of how the shortest premiership in British history came to an end
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More than 60 years after the development of the contraceptive pill for women, we still don’t have an equivalent for men. Why?
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Introducing Pig Iron: five years after his death on a distant frontline in South Sudan, the truth about what happened to Christopher Allen is still a mystery. Was he a reckless freelancer? A mercenary? Or a young and ambitious reporter, caught in the crossfire? Approached by a family member looking for answers, Basia Cummings begins investigating.
This is the first episode in the six part series 'Pig Iron'. To listen to the remaining episodes as they drop weekly, click on this link: https://torto.se/3CObDng
What happened in the 17 days between Kwasi Kwarteng becoming chancellor, sacking the Treasury’s top civil servant, and his fiscal event which crashed the British economy?
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What happened when social media platforms banned Andrew Tate, whose misogyny netted him a fortune and millions of online followers?
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When the premier of the British Virgin Islands was arrested in a drugs sting in Miami, what did British government officials know about the operation?
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No war crime is ever inevitable, but it’s possible to make one likely. Russia did exactly that before 53 prisoners of war burned to death at Olenivka.
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Richard Lambert talks to one of the UK’s foremost constitutional experts about the state of the monarchy.
If you'd like to read and listen to more of Tortoise's reporting on the Queen, including photo galleries, an obituary by Matthew d’Ancona and daily reporting on a country turning on a hinge of history, visit tortoisemedia.com/thesecondelizabethanage
Richard Lambert examines how the Queen navigated the world of international politics as head of state and head of the Commonwealth.
If you'd like to read and listen to more of Tortoise's reporting on the Queen, including photo galleries, an obituary by Matthew d’Ancona and daily reporting on a country turning on a hinge of history, visit tortoisemedia.com/thesecondelizabethanage
Richard Lambert charts the evolving relationship between the Queen, politicians and her Prime Ministers during her reign.
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When the Queen came to the throne the media was deferential to the 27-year-old monarch and her family. But in the 1960s that began to change. Richard Lambert maps the sometimes fractious relationship between the Queen and the press.
If you'd like to read and listen to more of Tortoise's reporting on the Queen, including photo galleries, an obituary by Matthew d’Ancona and daily reporting on a country turning on a hinge of history, visit tortoisemedia.com/thesecondelizabethanage
Richard Lambert assesses the Queen's strengths and weaknesses as a monarch.
If you'd like to read and listen to more of Tortoise's reporting on the Queen, including photo galleries, an obituary by Matthew d’Ancona and daily reporting on a country turning on a hinge of history, visit tortoisemedia.com
Richard Lambert recalls the excitement at the start of the second Elizabethan age. In 1953 Britain was a deferential society and adulation of the Queen was the order of the day.
Listen here: https://podfollow.com/the-second-elizabethan-age
Desiree Fixler was a high-flyer in the world of finance until she raised questions about whether sustainable investing is living up to its promise. Her decision to speak out had huge consequences.
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Peter Cruddas is a self-made billionaire, a Conservative party donor and now, a Lord. His rise reveals a lot about Boris Johnson’s battle with parliament.
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More than a year after Myanmar fell to a military coup, Ali Fowle investigates the growing resistance movement. Is there hope of a different future?
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The making of the modern Home Office
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Last year, as women accused Pornhub of profiting from their abuse, we tracked down its intensely secretive owner. This week, we’re looking back to find out: what happened next?
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When a video of a woman chained to a wall went viral in China, it ignited a battle for the truth between the people and the state.
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The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse abortion rights is reverberating across America. Arguably nowhere more so than in South Bend, Indiana, a small city in the heart of the Midwest.
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Last summer our three-part podcast Left To Die told the harrowing story of 200 civilians trapped in a hotel in Mozambique under siege by violent extremists. This week, we’re looking back to find out: what happened next?
To listen to the full series, click here: https://podfollow.com/1575743851
A former KGB officer, Britain’s foreign secretary – and a potential national security breach.
Listen to Londongrad, Paul Caruana Galizia's 6-part series investigating the influence of Russian oligarchs at the heart of UK government, business and media: https://podfollow.com/1625862285
One sleuth, two notebooks – and a 20-year mystery.
Listen to Life, Changing, a new series from Tortoise and the Nuffield Foundation: https://podfollow.com/1631138421
A tiny Gulf state has bought up some of Britain’s prized assets. But at what cost?
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When China opened up to the West, Hollywood saw a massive opportunity. But China had its own dreams. Now the movie studios are beginning to realise what they gave away
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Britain’s harsh welcome for refugees – and what happened when the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was tried before
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Every day more cracks emerge in the political system that guarantees the freedoms Britons hold dear. How do we stop it shattering?
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How the Lebedevs partied their way to power is a 6 part series investigating two men - who are at the heart of the story of Britain opening its doors to Russian oligarchs. Alexander Lebedev is a former KGB officer. He’s the man with the money and - as we’ll see - with the plan. Alexander’s son, Evgeny, rose from a fixture on the social scene to a seat in the House of Lords. He did it with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s help and against the advice of the security services. There’s never been a story quite like it.
To access the first 3 episodes now subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts or join Tortoise as a member. Visit tortoisemedia.com/londongrad and use the code Paul50 for half price membership for £50 per year.
How many more Child Qs are there? How many children are strip-searched by the police and who are they? Patricia Clarke and Claudia Williams investigate
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The Ukrainian port normally feeds the world, but the Russian invasion means nothing is getting out. Can we reopen the port – or will millions starve?
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Who is the real Stormy Daniels? Hattie Garlick meets arguably one of America’s most misunderstood and misrepresented women
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How did Rishi Sunak go from one of the most popular members of the government to one of the least in a matter of days? Matthew d’Ancona pieces together what happened.
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. We take news slowly. We tell stories that really matter, and take time to see the full picture.
If you want more slow and considered journalism, you can become a member of Tortoise and get access to more of our stories, contribute to our journalism and join us at events in our newsroom, in person and online. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow50 for membership for just £50 per year.
Today we are sharing an episode of Tortoise's new podcast series: The Backstory with Andrew Neil. This week Andrew talks to Fiona Hill, former director for Europe and Russia at the US National Security Council, about Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and her journey from the North East of England to the White House.
Click here https://podfollow.com/the-backstory-with-andrew-neil to follow The Backstory wherever you get your podcasts for a new episode every Tuesday.
For access every Friday to a bonus episode: Inside the Interview, where Andrew reflects on the conversations he has with his guests, subscribe to Tortoise on Apple Podcasts, or join Tortoise as a member to get this, plus access to more of our journalism and invites to exclusive events. For a year's half price digital membership for £50 go to tortoisemedia.com/andrew and enter the code AndrewNeil50.
Two atrocities in the port city of Mariupol epitomise Russia’s violence in Ukraine. This is the story of those atrocities and of Mariupol’s truth
With special thanks to Konstantin Korobov and Nina Kuryata for their help in reporting this story.
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. We take news slowly. We tell stories that really matter, and take time to see the full picture.
If you want more slow and considered journalism, you can become a member of Tortoise and get access to more of our stories, contribute to our journalism and join us at events in our newsroom, in person and online. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow50 for membership for just £50 per year.
What happens when a museum possesses a group of objects so sacred that they can never be seen in public or studied in private – and the original owners want them back?
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The days of the Russian oligarch in London are numbered. What fate awaits the enablers – those well-connected people who worked for and provided services to wealthy Russians? This is the story of one of them
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. We take news slowly. We tell stories that really matter, and take time to see the full picture.
If you want more slow and considered journalism, you can become a member of Tortoise and get access to more of our stories, contribute to our journalism and join us at events in our newsroom, in person and online. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow50 for membership for just £50 per year.
Twenty-seven women fell in suspicious circumstances. Seventeen died. Often, in the shadow of their fall, was a man. What if they didn’t fall. What if they were pushed?
Warning: This episode contains some upsetting content around the issues of domestic violence, sexual violence and homicide.
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. We take news slowly. We tell stories that really matter, and take time to see the full picture.
If you want more slow and considered journalism, you can become a member of Tortoise and get access to more of our stories, contribute to our journalism and join us at events in our newsroom, in person and online. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow50 for membership for just £50 per year.
What does the story of Alexei Navalny and wife Yulia Navalnaya tell us about Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the state of opposition?
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. We take news slowly. We tell stories that really matter, and take time to see the full picture.
If you want more slow and considered journalism, you can become a member of Tortoise and get access to more of our stories, contribute to our journalism and join us at events in our newsroom, in person and online. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow50 for membership for just £50 per year.
Imagine being blind but thanks to the wonders of technology being able to see again. How would you then feel if that sight was taken away?
Tortoise is a news start-up devoted to slow journalism. We take news slowly. We tell stories that really matter, and take time to see the full picture.
If you want more slow and considered journalism, you can become a member of Tortoise and get access to more of our stories, contribute to our journalism and join us at events in our newsroom, in person and online. Just go to tortoisemedia.com/friend and use the code Slow50 for membership for just £50 per year.
Political wisdom says the Russian invasion of Ukraine saved Boris Johnson’s skin. But the really successful operation to rescue the prime minister started long before and involved three men who you've probably never heard of.
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We thought the Russians were masters of the information war; that they’d sweep Ukraine aside. It's not turning out that way.
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Door after door in Britain has been opened for Evgeny Lebedev, all the way to a seat in the House of Lords. Who has opened the doors, and why?
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The ‘epidemic’ of spiking with needles in clubs and at parties in autumn 2021 revealed something important about women’s lives in Britain. But it wasn’t what we thought.
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The brilliance of populist politicians often lies in creating subtle dividing lines on apparently innocuous issues. What could be more innocuous than yoga? But India’s prime minister Narendra Modi – arguably the world’s most successful populist – has seized hold of yoga and weaponised it. In this week’s Slow Newscast, Warrior Pose, Claudia Williams reports on how a harmless pursuit has been transformed into a political wedge.
In a courtroom in west Germany, a man called Anwar Raslan stands accused of torturing Syrian civilians. He faces life in prison. But why does Germany care? These were far-away crimes. The answer lies in a remarkable story about the idea of justice.
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In March 2020 the prime minister told the country to stay at home. He then did the opposite and travelled to Chequers. This the story of one crucial fortnight in March 2020, and how the prime minister’s instinct to lie and treat the rules with contempt has corroded the institutions around him.
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In November, athlete Peng Shuai accused a senior Chinese politician of sexual assault. Then, she vanished. In this episode, we investigate her disappearance – and the silencing of China’s #MeToo movement
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Who is Virginia Roberts Giuffre? She was only 17 years old when she appeared in a now-famous photo, taken in Ghislaine Maxwell’s London mews house. Maxwell is behind her, grinning. Jeffrey Epstein, the multi-millionaire paedophile, is taking the photo. And to Virginia’s right, smilingly sheepishly, is Prince Andrew. Twenty years later, Epstein is dead, Ghislaine is a convicted sex trafficker, and Andrew has been stripped of his royal titles. How is it that Virginia, someone who started with almost no power, is now in the strongest position of all?
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How a former government minister used the secrecy of the family courts in an attempt to hide the truth.
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Linda Evangelista’s beauty made her a super-brand in the 1990s. But then, she disappeared. Until September 2021, when she revealed on Instagram details of a lawsuit. She claimed that a procedure called CoolSculpting, promising to freeze away unwanted fat, had instead multiplied it into “masses”. And she isn’t the only one…
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For our final episode of the year, we look back on our best stories of 2021. Basia is joined by Tortoise editor-in-chief James Harding, and colleague Ceri Thomas, to chat through what we've learned as journalists, and storytellers.
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China’s transformation into an economic powerhouse has come at a cost to its children, under enormous pressure to succeed. Now the country is wondering if the price has been too high. Reporter Poppy Sebag-Montefiore, producer Claudia Williams, sound design by Karla Patella.
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London's courts play host to some of the world's most high-profile divorces. In the sorry case of Akhmedov vs Akhmedova, a family feud turned into a costly game of hide and seek...
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This is a story about a boy called Elliott – trapped in time.
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In Kabul, the Taliban’s takeover was assured. In London, an ignominious retreat, and the betrayal of former comrades in the Afghan army, was more than a group of ex-soldiers, now MPs, could stomach...
Over a handful of chaotic days this summer, Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The legacy of the decision to leave after 20 years has been wretched for many Afghan people, and a brutal lesson for the UK. In this two-part Slow Newscast, Matthew d'Ancona charts events as they unfolded. Part 1: As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Britain found itself frozen out of decision making and incapable of influencing events.
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Who are the people behind a spate of multi-million dollar ransomware attacks on financial institutions, schools and hospitals? When Nicky Woolf began to investigate the highest-profile ransomware outfit, REvil, it was almost completely hidden from view. But then... the cyber-police started to uncover its secrets.
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Since 2016, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held hostage in Iran. Ceri Thomas investigates how a long-forgotten debt could be the real reason behind her incarceration.
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The reputation of Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai has been tarnished beyond repair by the way he treated his wife Haya and daughter Latifa. At least we know about what they went through. There's another daughter - Shamsa - who was the first to try to escape the Sheikh's clutches. She, and her story, have almost vanished.
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Sweet Bobby is a new series by Tortoise. Kirat is a successful local radio presenter. Online she’s contacted by a man she vaguely knows called Bobby, and they start chatting. Slowly, they become close… and she’s reeled in to a scam of epic proportions...
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When a young woman travelling across the US disappeared, an army of digital detectives and citizen journalists jumped on the case. When she was found murdered, they went into overdrive. In this week’s Slow Newscast, we examine a true crime story happening in real time.
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It started with a high-pitched noise. Then, American diplomats started getting sick. Nausea, dizziness, confusion. Across the world, this strange syndrome is spreading. Is it an attack? A sophisticated weapon? In this episode, we investigate the mystery of the immaculate concussion.
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More than 20 years after emptying the Russian state treasure of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds and gold, Andrei Kozlenok breaks his silence with an even more extraordinary tale. But why?
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When Communism collapsed, a young man was tasked with selling Russia’s diamonds to the highest bidder. Then, he went on the run with $600m. He was missing for more than 20 years, until reporter Giles Whittell found him, last year. This is the riotous story of Golden Ada – the origin story of Russia's kleptocracy.
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It’s been said often enough: the pandemic has been like a war. Economically, on civil liberties and the deaths it has caused, it’s hard to find a better comparison. And just like a war it places responsibilities on companies that make vital supplies which are different from peacetime – to profit, but not to profiteer
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Plenty of people take wrong turns in their lives. But so too can justice systems. John Crilly and hundreds more have been the victims of the legal doctrine of Joint Enterprise and how it has been applied for the past 30 years.
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Joe Biden’s life has been marked by grief, most recently at the death of his beloved son, Beau. And Beau Biden’s legacy isn’t only personal, it’s political, too.
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In Donald Trump's America, thousands of children who crossed the border from Mexico were separated from their parents. It's now clear that some of those families - perhaps hundreds - may never be reunited.
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A year ago, journalist Joshi Herrmann got an anonymous tip. It sent him to a website claiming to have evidence of serious corruption, grooming gangs and “cartels” operating in Oldham. From there, Joshi stumbled across a remarkable story about how online conspiracies are poisoning local politics, spilling out from paranoid corners of the internet all the way to the ballot box. And at the heart of it all is on one rather angry man, who calls himself “the recusant”...
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The remarkable story of Rohullah Yakobi, a daring escape, and a 20-year war.
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Over 20 years, a simple email newsletter has reshaped celebrity culture. In a special edition of the Slow Newscast, Claudia Williams tells the story of Popbitch.
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With human rights groups demanding a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, we look back to Moscow 1980, and ask what’s the lesson of the most notorious Olympic boycott in modern times?
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In the internet age, anyone with a camera can make and sell porn. But what happens when a shoot goes wrong? In the second episode in our Porn Planet series investigating online pornography, we look into the world of porn production
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The truth of an origin story has never mattered more: did Covid cross to humans from an animal, or did it escape from a laboratory? The arguments have only grown fiercer. And in the fog of war, the World Health Organisation lost its way
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How the richest nations on the planet promised to vaccinate every adult, everywhere, against Covid. They failed.
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This is a story about one student, one case, and a serious sexual assault. It takes place at Cambridge University, but the case – of a botched process that lets a young woman down – could have happened almost anywhere...
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In the final episode of Left to die: Nick Alexander tells the story of his torturous escape from the convoy – and the question left lying in the dust of the attack: who, really, abandoned them all?
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Episode 2 of our series investigating what happened at the Amarula Hotel: the story of Wesley and his brother Adrian, who escape in a car and are ambushed by insurgents as they race to safety.
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In March, Islamist militants attacked the town of Palma, in northern Mozambique – the site of a $20bn gas project. They besieged a hotel, where more than 200 civilians were taking shelter, waiting to be rescued. But help never came. In our new three-part series, we investigate why these men, women and children were abandoned.
Ep1: An Islamist insurgency hits. Nick and Wes, two South African contractors, race to the Amarula Hotel. Over three horrifying days, it becomes clear: no one is coming to help.
The Slow Newscast takes news slowly. Each week, we tell one investigative story. Your host is Basia Cummings.
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In little more than a year - the year of the pandemic - Anand Menon lost his mother, father, brother and sister, but not to Covid. Grief and loss have been a part of so many lives this year, but none more so than Anand's.
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Sophie Bennett took her own life in a care facility that was crumbling around her. Paul Caruana Galizia and Chris Cook investigate what went wrong at a charity led by a famous mental health pioneer.
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After Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds’ wedding, there are now two powerful married couples in Number 10. Meet the other: Munira and Dougie...
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As dozens of women accuse the world’s largest porn company of profiting from their abuse, listen to the full story of how we traced its secretive owner to his London mansion
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In the German city of Chemnitz, political extremists aren’t just present – they’re organised. And they’re trying to spread their creed from ramshackle buildings to the rest of the country
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The story of a dying lake, a forgotten community and the hunt for a green future. Host Basia Cummings is joined by reporters Miranda Green and Lucy Sherriff to investigate.
When A 12-year-old Somali refugee drowned in the River Irwell in 2019, suspicion and rumour soon followed. In this episode, Basia is joined by reporter Nimo Omer to investigate what happened to Shukri Abdi.
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A life like Harvey Proctor’s has lessons for the police and the media. And for all of us: what are we prepared to do to people we turn into hate figures?
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Harvey Proctor was caught in the middle of a deadly serious police investigation, Operation Midland. How could he fight it?
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It’s tough to survive one huge, public scandal in your life. Two is almost unheard of. But that was about to happen to Harvey Proctor.
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Harvey Proctor was a Conservative MP, notorious in the 1980s for his right-wing views. Until he was entrapped by a newspaper in a ‘gay sex scandal’ and his life started to unravel.
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The mysterious story of Gulf Livestock 1, a 12,000-tonne ship carrying 6,000 cows that disappeared without a trace in the Pacific Ocean.
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We're launching a brand new podcast from Tortoise called ThinkIn with James Harding. In this week's Slow Newscast, a preview.
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This week we introduce a new podcast, and re-up an episode from our archive on the hero lawyer turned anti-vaxxer who has spent the pandemic spreading medical misinformation.
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An unlikely scandal... in the world of embroidery. How a highly-paid male CEO went to war with a group of embroidery-loving women, who decided to get together and fight back.
Who is Keir Starmer? There’s the basic answer: he’s the leader of Britain’s Labour party. But beyond that? We investigate his past.
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Reaching the summit of K2 in winter had never been done before. In January, a group of mountaineers – professionals, amateurs, social media adventurers – attempted it. It ended in triumph… and tragedy.
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As he returned to Moscow after months recovering from a nerve agent attack, Alexei Navalny released a remarkable YouTube video – and with it, sowed the seeds for a new Russian revolution by meme.
Covid-19 may be losing the vaccine battle, but as the virus evolves fast to form new variants, the war is most definitely not over...
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is one of Britain's richest men. Since Brexit he's made a show of his patriotism. Is it for real?
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The myth of Gamestop was that it was a David and Goliath struggle. The truth was very different.
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Geoffrey Woolf spent longer in hospital after Covid-19 than almost anyone - 306 days. His son Nicky tells the story of what he went through, and how it changed everything.
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Power, greed, and a $65m 'gift': the story of King Juan Carlos of Spain and Corinna, his lover
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The final episode of our special series. How do you fix a fatal problem no one is properly measuring?
To learn more, go to tortoisemedia.com/hiddenhomicides
The astonishing case of Emily Whelan, and decisions and delays that cannot be undone. The third episode in our special series on the deaths that may be going unrecognised, and uncounted, by police.
To learn more, go to tortoisemedia.com/hiddenhomicides
The second part of our new series, Hidden Homicides: the story of a killer twice missed. When Susan Nicholson died suddenly, her parents were immediately suspicious. Her partner was known to police to be a serious domestic abuser, but still they refused to investigate. It took six years before a proper investigation was launched. Why?
To learn more, go to tortoisemedia.com/hiddenhomicides
In a new series by Tortoise, we tell the shocking stories of women whose possible homicides go unrecognised, and uncounted, by police. In episode 1: the life and death of 21-year-old Katie Wilding, and her mother’s remarkable fight for justice.
To learn more, go to tortoisemedia.com/hiddenhomicides.
What was really going on when President Trump's supporters invaded the Capitol?
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Coronavirus vaccines are a triumph for science, and an enormous gamble for the UK. They're all we've got left: our only hope of getting out of the Covid crisis.
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A former army base in Folkstone, Kent, is now the controversial epicentre of the Britain's immigration debate – a debate that hasn’t gone away with Brexit.
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Britain has one of the worst records in the world at dealing with the coronavirus. The country's death toll, and the economic damage it suffers, will be worse than most of its competitors; possibly worse than any of them. Over three days in November, Tortoise held an inquiry into why things have gone so wrong. Basia Cummings reports back on its findings - and on her own year coping, as we all have, with an unprecedented crisis.
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The British government has spent billions tackling the coronavirus, and some of it has gone to friends and family of people in high places. Contracts for safety equipment or for testing for Covid have been handed out without the usual safeguards on public spending, and accusations of corruption and cronyism have flown around. Is that what's happening, or is the explanation more mundane? Would the government's actions be better seen as normal in the wildly abnormal situation of a pandemic? And have they perhaps been aided and abetted by garden variety incompetence?
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The Wing was part co-working space, part feminist haven - a high-concept, big-money chain of women-only spaces, the brainchild of super-smart, ultra-connected New Yorker, Audrey Gelman. It was a child of Instagram which soon started to encounter severe difficulties in the real world. Did the way it treated its members, and particularly its employees, live up to its high ideals? Those problems knocked The Wing and the pandemic finished it off. How did a feminist vision become a corporate nightmare? Basia Cummings is your host, with in-depth reporting from Sophie Elmhirst.
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A story centuries in the making that is building an unstoppable momentum. This week we are going north of the wall and asking: is Scotland on a march to independence?
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On Saturday October 31st, the British government was forced to announce a second national coronavirus lockdown. We know the announcement itself was mishandled; the reasons why are fascinating. In this special episode of the Slow Newscast Matt D'Ancona goes deep into a day of political drama and intrigue in Downing St which helps explain so much about where this government is going wrong.
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Jack Ma set up the Chinese online giant Alibaba. It made him hugely rich, and perhaps too powerful for comfort for China's ruling elite. Last week his plan for the biggest-ticket stock market launch ever came to a crashing halt when the authorities in Beijing pulled the plug on it. Did Jack Ma fly too high? Have his wings been clipped forever?
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In June 2020, JK Rowling sent a Tweet which took her to the heart of the bitter debate about trans rights and women's rights. A few days later, with an online storm gathering around her, she published a 3,600-word essay explaining her position. She'd set off a ferocious argument which alienated many of her young fans; led some of the stars of the Harry Potter films to distance themselves from Harry's creator; and which ran like a lightning-strike through the worlds of film and publishing which made her fortune. Why did JK Rowling do it? What will the fall-out be?
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From the first moment of his presidency, Donald Trump has courted - and largely won - the votes of white, Evangelical Christians. For a famously profane and worldly president it's a striking achievement and, in recent months, Trump seems to have doubled-down on the Christian vote with talk of 'miracles' while people around him have described the Democrats as 'atheists'. Has a President with a genius for spotting groups with a grievance and for exploiting division identified a new fault-line in American politics? And how big a difference could it make in next week's election?
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It's not that our economies haven't already taken a hit because of the coronavirus, it's that what's coming may be much worse. Politicians, and people in finance and business, can see it, but there are no prizes for talking openly about it. So we've gone back to two people who really understand the depths of the trouble ahead. Alastair Darling was UK Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 2008 financial crash, and Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England. When they look around the corner, what do they see? And what should the government be doing now to prevent the worst?
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If animals share many qualities with humans - if they're self-aware, if they communicate, and grieve for their dead, as we know they do - do they deserve human-like rights? Next month, the case of Happy the elephant comes before the New York Supreme Court. Happy's lawyer (yes, she has one) will argue that her long incarceration in the Bronx Zoo has breached her right to bodily freedom. The case will get a respectful hearing; it's not inconceivable that Happy will win. But even if she loses, the court of public opinion is already changing its mind about the way we treat the animals around us.
The organisation change.org have a petition calling for Happy's release, currently signed by 1.3m people.
You can read the Bronx Zoo's statement about Happy here.
If animals share many qualities with humans - if they're self-aware, if they communicate, and grieve for their dead, as we know they do - do they deserve human-like rights? Next month, the case of Happy the elephant comes before the New York Supreme Court. Happy's lawyer (yes, she has one) will argue that her long incarceration in the Bronx Zoo has breached her right to bodily freedom. The case will get a respectful hearing; it's not inconceivable that Happy will win. But even if she loses, the court of public opinion is already changing its mind about the way we treat the animals around us.
The organisation change.org have a petition calling for Happy's release, currently signed by 1.3m people.
You can read the Bronx Zoo's statement about Happy here.
If animals share many qualities with humans - if they're self-aware, if they communicate, and grieve for their dead, as we know they do - do they deserve human-like rights? Next month, the case of Happy the elephant comes before the New York Supreme Court. Happy's lawyer (yes, she has one) will argue that her long incarceration in the Bronx Zoo has breached her right to bodily freedom. The case will get a respectful hearing; it's not inconceivable that Happy will win. But even if she loses, the court of public opinion is already changing its mind about the way we treat the animals around us.
The organisation change.org have a petition calling for Happy's release, currently signed by 1.3m people.
You can read the Bronx Zoo's statement about Happy here.
The serial failures of the UK's test and trace system will never be a footnote in the coronavirus crisis. In fact, they're the headline. Matthew d'Ancona reports on how it got so bad.
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The fertility industry is booming, but there is a tightrope to walk between what is possible, ethical and harmful. Reporter Claudia Williams and host Basia Cummings investigate the rise and rise of IVF.
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Coronavirus can kill, or pass through a body unnoticed. Its effects in the short term are wildly unpredictable. But as we learn to live with this new virus we're discovering more of its grisly secrets. One of them is that the damage it does to the body in the long run might leave a dreadful legacy. This is the story - as much as we know it – of Long Covid.
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We went to the perennial swing state where Trump won narrowly in 2016. Four years later, is Florida ready to flip again? Will it be an election about Covid and competence, law and order or racial justice? Will it be a referendum on the character of Donald Trump or just further evidence of a hopelessly divide nation?
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Evin Prison is one of the most secretive places on earth; the heart of Iran's oppression of its own people. We've spent months getting inside its walls through the testimony of people who've been detained there over the past 40 years. Together, their accounts are not simply the story of the prison, they're the story of what Iran has become.
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Drill music styles itself as a tough and uncompromising representation of life in poor communities in cities like Chicago and London. Police forces have clamped down on it in the belief that it provokes violence, but the evidence for a causal link is thin. Not for the first time, an innovative, anti-establishment Black voice is being quietened.
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Something which is now almost unimaginable happened between 1974 and 1989. The world spotted a massive problem; the fix required action by consumers, businesses and governments; and they came together to pull it off. This is the story of the discovery of what man-made emissions were doing to the ozone layer and mankind's brilliant response.
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Michaela Coel's TV drama I May Destroy You has just finished playing on the BBC and HBO. Based partly on her own experience it's an unsettling, sometimes harrowing, examination of sexual assault, consent, friendship, and the experience of growing up Black and British. It may come to be seen as a watershed moment in British television, and it's not Coel's first. Basia Cummings talks to journalist and critic Yomi Adegoke about Michaela Coel's remarkable talent.
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The story of the toppling of Edward Colston's statue in Bristol became a prominent chapter in the global response to the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests. Those events were the reasons the statue came down, but the more intriguing question is why it stayed up for so long. Why did a monument to a prominent slave trader remain standing for decades in spite of a local campaign to have it moved to a museum?
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How a member of the Kennedy political dynasty has become the most prolific super-spreader of conspiracies connecting anti-vaxxers, 5G and coronavirus
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Chancellor Rishi Sunak is diligent and decent, but is he really the right man for the job of saving the British economy?
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As president Xi uses the pandemic to crack down again, we speak to Dr Teng Biao and Simon Cheng about their treatment in China's battle to control its people
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"How are you?" used to be a throwaway question, but the pandemic has given it new meaning. Former spin-doctor Alastair Campbell, now a prominent mental health campaigner, asks high-profile people from sport, politics and entertainment how they've coped with life's new realities. Their answers have something to say to all of us.
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Late every evening in London at the Ministry of Justice, dozens of poorly-paid workers slip into the offices to begin their night-time cleaning jobs. Many - maybe most - have recently arrived in the UK. Economically, their lives are precarious. But when coronavirus struck life itself became precarious. Emanuel Gomes and Luis Eduardo Veintimilla are two of the cleaners at the Ministry who carried on working there as the virus took hold around them.
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The royal family's finances are mysterious, and the strange formula which calculates the money they get from the taxpayer is badly understood. Tortoise has been going through the accounts. What they show is a family which has become enormously richer over recent years and may benefit from huge windfalls in years to come.
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Like a handful of football managers before him, Jurgen Klopp is fascinating as a leader. His ability to motivate people around him would be exceptional in any occupation, in any circumstances, and the connection he has forged with the city of Liverpool is extraordinary. Klopp's explanation for his success is simplicity itself: a belief in selflessness and community.
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Boris Johnson could have died from coronavirus. He recovered, but the costs to the country of his illness were huge. Government was paralysed without him and vital decisions weren't taken. How did things fall apart so badly in Number 10 Downing St?
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The protests on the streets of the United States and around the world have taken the authorities by surprise. But they haven't sprung from nowhere; they've sprung from attitudes and events dating back hundreds of years. Previous protests demanding racial justice - famously, the riots in Chicago in 1968 - didn't heal the problems of the communities which took to the streets. In fact, in Chicago's case, they created scars which are still visible today.
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Amazon is a true economic superpower; a company of a scale and kind we haven't seen before. It's relentless in its pursuit of efficiency on behalf of its customers, but what does it believe in? How does it see its place in the world? Tortoise is investigating the big tech companies as rigorously as if they were countries. What sort of country has Jeff Bezos created?
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It's not just the hopes of young people which depend on them going to university, whole towns and cities rely on them too. The British government estimated that education would be worth £23bn to the UK economy this year. If coronavirus keeps students away, universities, shops, landlords, pubs and clubs will all be poorer. In some places, it could be a devastating blow.
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No part of British society has been harder hit by the coronavirus pandemic than care homes. 15,000 people have died there. Why were they uniquely vulnerable? Partly because they housed vulnerable people; partly because the financial structures that lie behind them left them open to a disaster of this kind.
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When coronavirus struck and the UK locked down, the government began paying the wages of furloughed workers. It's a hugely expensive policy. There are risks in continuing it but the risks of stopping may be even greater.
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The Nightingale hospitals - huge intensive care hospitals built in a matter of days to deal with the overspill if regular hospitals couldn't cope with the numbers of coronavirus patients - are sitting empty. It's good news, but what does it tell us about the way the British government has handled this pandemic?
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Claude Jibidar is country director for the World Food Programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo - a huge country beset with vast problems, not just food shortages but armed conflict and ebola as well. As the coronavirus hits, this fragile state will struggle to cope. Many of Claude's colleagues have left, fearful of contracting cover-19 in a place with such poor healthcare. But Claude has chosen to stay.
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Jan Gould is the vicar for the Church in Wales in the parish of Glen Ely in Cardiff. It's a poor neighbourhood and the church is still an important part of the community. In normal times, there's a natural balance between births, deaths and marriages. But the coronavirus has disrupted that balance. These days, Jan is dealing with a sea of funerals and coping with the restrictions of lockdown that make the job of a parish priest more difficult.
We mention Befrienders, an organisation of volunteers who work to prevent suicide. You can find them at https://www.befrienders.org/directory
This week on the slow news podcast, we’re looking at the messy conspiracy theory of 5G and Covid-19. What has been going on? And why are these ideas spreading? We’ve had the investigative reporter James Ball looking for answers.
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The coronavirus lockdown is not just a difficult time for business, it's an emotional time. How to survive as a going concern? How to treat workers fairly? And, if your business is running a zoo, how to think about the welfare of animals as well as humans? Twycross Zoo in the UK is celebrated for its role in animal conservation. But that won't protect it from some very difficult decisions ahead.
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One of the unavoidable consequences of the coronavirus lockdown is that it traps women and children with their abusers. And for women seeking to escape, the routes out may be closed. Even making a phone call for help may be impossible. Basia Cummings has been talking to people trying to help victims of domestic abuse in unimaginably difficult circumstances.
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In some countries where the coronavirus has hit hard - Italy or Spain - health workers account for up to 20% of people infected, and the death toll among them is mounting. The front line of health has become a very dangerous place, and that may be one of the stories of this pandemic.
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Pandemics are part of life. They've caused millions of deaths over the centuries but, in the end, the lesson of history is that, just like the Black Death, smallpox, cholera and many others, this pandemic will pass. How and why does that happen? What do human beings do, what do viruses do, to learn to live with each other? With special guest Professor Deenan Pillay, Professor of Virology at University College London.
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UK politics has torn itself apart over Brexit. Parliament, the prime minister, 'the people' and the courts have been at each others' throats, and old conventions governing the way the system works have been ripped up. Tortoise has set out to answer an old and important question: instead of celebrating the fact that Britain is one of the few countries in the world without a written constitution, is it time for us to draft one?
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Trinity Hall is a small Cambridge college - one of the 30+ which make up the university. After an investigation over several months, Tortoise has brought to light a number of allegations of sexual impropriety and assault. In each case, there's evidence that the college may have put its own interests ahead of the victims'. The question has been asked: is this the #MeToo moment for British universities?
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered by a car bomb. Since her death, her family has fought tirelessly for justice in the face of overwhelming odds. In this four-part series, Daphne's son Paul Caruana Galizia returns to Malta to uncover an assassination plot which extends into the highest reaches of the Maltese government.
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered by a car bomb. Since her death, her family has fought tirelessly for justice in the face of overwhelming odds. In this four-part series, Daphne's son Paul Caruana Galizia returns to Malta to uncover an assassination plot which extends into the highest reaches of the Maltese government.
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered by a car bomb. Since her death, her family has fought tirelessly for justice in the face of overwhelming odds. In this four-part series, Daphne's son Paul Caruana Galizia returns to Malta to uncover an assassination plot which extends into the highest reaches of the Maltese government.
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was Malta's pre-eminent investigative journalist. She exposed corruption at the highest levels of politics and business in the country until, in October 2017, she was murdered by a car bomb. Since her death, her family has fought tirelessly for justice in the face of overwhelming odds. In this four-part series, Daphne's son Paul Caruana Galizia returns to Malta to uncover an assassination plot which extends into the highest reaches of the Maltese government.
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This week we're in Pennsylvania, where Trump won in 2016. Can he win here again?
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The new frontier of medical science is closer than you think – much closer. It lies within us, in the bacteria and viruses of the gut, and in the mysterious efficacy of faecal transplants.
There’s so much hype in health journalism. But the study of the gut microbiome – the universe of bacteria living in our intestine – really is opening up a new age in our understanding of the human body that promises to unlock revolutions in drugs and healthcare, food and nutrition, wellbeing and even happiness.
James Harding, editor and co-founder of Tortoise, spoke to James Kinross, a researcher and consultant colorectal surgeon - one of our leading gut scientists
One day, the next catastrophic global epidemic will strike. Scientists already know a few things about it: it will probably have crossed the species barrier from animal to human; it’s likely to originate in Asia; it will travel easily from person to person.
The coronavirus has all those characteristics but we may be fortunate. The early signs are that it’s not as fatal as some of the viruses responsible for previous pandemics, and the lessons we learned from those outbreaks may help to contain it.
In this week’s Tortoise podcast, Basia Cummings looks back at SARS, the last virus which seemed to carry a global threat, and how one doctor’s actions saved countless lives in a country. Her guest is Jeremy Farrar, director of the medical research charity, the Wellcome Trust.
We'd like you to meet Toni, Sharon and Nicky. You may have passed them on the street - somebody who listens to this podcast almost certainly will have done. But you won't have met them, any more than most of us really meet women who are homeless and sleeping rough in subways, stations and shop doorways.
Audrey Gillan has spent time with all three women, hearing their stories; how they came to be where they are, and what their lives are like. The number of homeless women in the UK has shot up in recent years. The stories that Toni, Sharon and Nicky tell help explain why.
You can read more on the Tortoise app, in our multi-part investigation:
Three women, homeless
Invisible
The helping hands
The revolving door
The Labour Party in the UK is choosing a new leader. Few people care - after a crushing election defeat, the party has got work to do to make itself interesting again. It's a gloomy picture for Labour, but a surprise candidate is shining through. Could Lisa Nandy be Labour's bright new face?
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Tom Crowther is a young ecologist who asked a simple question: how many trees are there on planet earth? The answer has changed our understanding of the world, but Crowther's work has provoked a firestorm.
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For months, Tortoise has been investigating big tech companies as if they were countries: holding them to the same standards that we apply to nation states; caring about what they think; understanding what they're planning to do; figuring out who's in charge now, and who might be next.
It's been a huge reporting project. In this week's podcast, Basia Cummings talks to two of the Tortoise editors behind it, Alexi Mostrous and James Harding.
Since the general election was called, one of Britain's foremost political journalists has been tracking the Labour campaign for Tortoise. Here's his story of tension and bad choices inside the party machine.
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The murder of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia denied Malta its best hope of beating endemic corruption and bribery. Her family have fought ever since for her legacy and for justice. This week events have taken dramatic turns, with arrests and the resignation of government ministers. Daphne’s son Paul, a reporter at Tortoise, has been at the heart of it all.
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It’s easy to conclude that Prince Andrew shouldn't have agreed to give an interview to the BBC, but it’s more interesting to ask why he thought it was a good idea.
Three Tortoise editors – James Harding, Basia Cummings and Ceri Thomas – have spent this week asking that question, talking to people in and around Buckingham Palace, and re-examining the Jeffrey Epstein case.
In this week’s Tortoise podcast: how fears about a slimmed-down monarchy and financial independence led to a terrible misjudgement.
In this election, the Conservatives are betting on youth to win the social media campaign. The kids running their digital strategy don’t know what a 30th birthday is like but they’re aggressively in charge. And, for better or worse, they’re changing the game.
Tortoise editors Basia Cummings and Ceri Thomas get inside the digital campaign with help from fellow editors Alexi Mostrous, Polly Curtis and Matt D’Ancona.
British politics is undergoing a fundamental shift. Traditionally, economics has been the key to who wins elections but in recent years - and turbocharged by Brexit - identity has come to the fore. The implications are enormous. Political parties are reshaping and their economic policies are being transformed.
Tortoise editors Basia Cummings and Ceri Thomas explore what this could mean in this election and in decades to come.
Guests in Edition #1 are John Aitken, Glasgow youth worker, Andrew (Lord) Cooper, former Director of Strategy to David Cameron, and Tortoise editors Chris Cook and Matthew d’Ancona.