new podcast series
The News Meeting
In every newsroom around the world there’s a daily meeting to decide what leads the news, what follows and in what order – usually behind closed doors. In this podcast, we want to change that, and invite you in.
new podcast
The Tavistock: Inside the gender clinic
Soon, the only NHS clinic in England and Wales which treats transgender children will soon close. This is the story of what happened.
Editor’S voicemail
Boosting Britain’s place in the world
Rishi Sunak’s first speech on British foreign policy this week was thin on ideas. Luckily, others have started putting in the work.
creative sensemaker
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando has never felt more contemporary
Emma Corrin’s performance in Michael Grandage’s production brings fresh life to the story.
tech states sensemaker
Protests in China have exposed Apple’s weakness
A reliance on cheap labour in illiberal economies has left Apple vulnerable.
sensemaker our daily roundup of the news that matters
Bit of a mess
2 december 2022
- Joe Biden said he was “prepared to speak” to Putin about the war in Ukraine.
- Spain said six letter bombs were sent to officials including PM Sánchez.
- A Florida woman sued Kraft saying its mac ‘n cheese took too long to make.
If a cryptocurrency exchange collapses, should the real economy care? The answer’s not clear yet, but the question’s urgent.
World Cup 2022 updates
A century and a half of the England football team
by Paul Hayward
Tortoise’s Sports Editor Paul Hayward provides an update day by day on the 2022 World Cup. Today: a very brief history of the England men’s football team – and a look at the challenges facing them now.
Hats off to the World Cup – or else
Fifa is jeopardising its own existence in Qatar
Sign up for the Sport Sensemaker, Paul’s weekly newsletter covering the inner workings of global sports.
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Multi-part podcast series
Limited series
Who chooses the prime minister?
Liz Truss was elected prime minister by a handful of the population – Conservative party members. Her successor was almost chosen this way as well. But nobody knows exactly who these people are – or how secure the process is. So we’ve asked the Conservative Party to tell us.
On 10 October 2022, Tortoise submitted an application for Judicial Review of the Conservative party’s refusal to disclose information about the way it chose Britain’s new prime minister.
Our latest podcast episodes
Boosting Britain’s place in the world
Rishi Sunak’s first speech on British foreign policy this week was thin on ideas. Luckily, others have started putting in the work
After the final whistle
Iran’s football team has been knocked out of the men’s World Cup, but their refusal to sing the national anthem means they may face repercussions back home. What will happen to them next?
Balenciaga, protests, Alzheimer’s drug
James Harding is joined by Tortoise journalists Liz Moseley, Andrew Butler and Dave Taylor to discuss the stories they think mattered most this week
The return of a Disney hero
Bob Iger has returned as CEO of Disney two years after stepping down. What does his comeback tell us about the challenges for Disney and other streaming services?
Read
Matthew d’Ancona
Every Monday, Tortoise editor and award-winning commentator Matthew d’Ancona picks apart the political stories that matter with wit, flair and insider knowledge in his weekly column.
Hancock’s lesson for Sunak
The former health secretary’s surprisingly successful performance in the jungle is a warning that purely technocratic politics is no longer enough
Don’t walk into the Brexit elephant trap, Mr Starmer
Last week’s autumn statement was meant to hem in Labour on fiscal policy. Now, Rishi Sunak is trying to tempt the Opposition leader onto lethal ground of a different sort.
Sunak is a much greater gambler than Truss
The previous PM was always doomed to fail. On Thursday, Jeremy Hunt will unveil an autumn statement that bets the farm on a high-risk fiscal strategy that may well be the Tories’ last throw of the dice.
Everyone can join
By offering sponsored membership to those who otherwise could not join Tortoise, we are truly an open and inclusive newsroom.
We’re not cutting emissions fast enough.
Which is why we launched the Accelerating Net Zero Coalition last year: a group of partners determined to make progress towards net zero. With the help of these businesses we’re hosting solution-focused discussions on how to get there together.
The Slow Newscast
Our biggest stories given voice
Inside Unite
The union, Liverpool and the £100m hotel
21 November 2022
58 minutes
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
The Alzheimer’s casino: Big money and bad science
What happens when science and medical research meet Wall Street?
Egypt’s bad cop
The story of one man, fighting to his last breath, to reveal the darkness that lies behind this year’s UN Climate Change Conference
Mutiny: The undoing of Liz Truss
The inside story of how the shortest premiership in British history came to an end
The missing male pill
More than 60 years after the development of the contraceptive pill for women, we still don’t have an equivalent for men. Why?
Watch
In conversation with Alastair Campbell
One-on-one with Tortoise editor-in-chief James Harding, Alastair will unpick how Westminster’s class of 2022 speaks to the electorate, and the world. Where are they going wrong, what are they getting right, and what should we watch out for in future Government communications
Warrior queens and quiet revolutionaries
A joyous storytelling odyssey about trailblazing women; the unsung heroes of the past that we tend to forget but need celebrating.
Nostalgia and lies: how much of British history is actually true?
How to we identify what parts of our collective history are truths or lies, and how those stories we tell ourselves shape our lives today.
A history of the British Isles in Just a Minute
Join us for a romp through British history with a series of 60-second stories.
Book
How do you build a fairer world in an era of permacrisis?
This ThinkIn will pose the challenge of imagining a ‘new internationalism’.
Tortoise Lates: Christmas
Tortoise Lates: Christmas
The Responsible Quantum Summit
Conversation around shared languages, national security, global economy and Quantum supremacy with special guests
The Review
Join us at our fortnightly breakfast event that helps Tortoise members and friends make sense of what’s going on in the world, from breaking news and the latest scoops, to the slow burn stories we should be keeping an eye on.
We’re building a different type of newsroom, for a slower, wiser news.
Members are at the heart of what we do
Our members bring a diverse range of voices into our newsroom to inform our journalism.
Taking the time to get it right
News has become noise. We sort through it all and crunch the data to call out what really matters.
A fresh approach to journalism
We use infographics, absorbing audio and stunning photography to make complex stories clear and enjoyable.