Ellen Halliday is the deputy editor of Prospect magazine. Before that she was a reporter and assistant editor at Tortoise, and was previously the Economist’s Nico Colchester Fellow, reporting on European affairs from Brussels. Her work on areas including politics, culture and human rights has appeared in the Times, the Atlantic, the New Statesman and elsewhere.
Ellen Halliday
“In my career, I hope to uncover stories that matter, hold power to account and give voice to people who often go unheard. Tortoise does all that, with style.”
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Monday 16 May 2022
17:00-18:00 BST
Sack the leaders: are young people the answer to a net-zero future?
How can young people turn their activism into impactful action, when it’s often a struggle just to get their voices heard?
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Monday 21 March 2022
18:30-19:30 GMT
Disappeared nations and flooded cities: what happens when a country drowns?
What happens when a town, city or nation sinks below the surface, and what does it mean for the people who live there?
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Saturday 6 November 2021
08:30-09:30 GMT
Who should pay to save the rainforest?
A Cop26 series ThinkIn, looking at rainforest preservation and protection.
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Friday 30 September 2022
Branches of history
The Fortingall Yew probably first emerged when the Romans ruled the known world. Two thousand years later it faces a new threat
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Tuesday 26 April 2022
Future farming
The UK is using its limited land badly. Government plans won’t make agriculture change fast enough
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Tuesday 12 April 2022
Energy security crisis 2.0
The West doesn’t control the resources it needs to build a renewable energy future. China does
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Tuesday 22 March 2022
Hydrogen’s close-up
It’s getting cheaper to make the energy-storing gas using renewables – and that could help the world through the energy crisis.
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Tuesday 8 March 2022
Six months to lights out
If Europe were to survive next winter without Russian gas, it would have to shift to a wartime footing. In the short term that could put net zero at risk. In the longer term it could accelerate climate action
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Tuesday 22 February 2022
Sun block
There is no net zero without Africa, and that’s a problem
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Tuesday 15 February 2022
Climate backlash
The government needs to make it clear to the public that net zero remains a priority, despite high gas prices and calls to delay from the backbench.
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Tuesday 8 February 2022
Reoility Check
The oil majors are reporting soaring profits, but the pressure on them to decarbonise continues to mount. Driving down demand could force them to go faster.
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Tuesday 25 January 2022
Plastic problem
The world creates 300 million tonnes of plastic waste every year – but companies still can’t get enough recycled material to stop using it brand new.
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Tuesday 11 January 2022
Ready, set, Gfanz
At Cop26 last year, financial institutions made a $130 trillion promise to save the planet. How’s it going so far?
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Thursday 2 December 2021
Tory MPs signed up to a conference of men’s rights activists
Tortoise has found that two Conservative parliamentarians committed to speak at an online event organised by “anti-feminists”
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Thursday 11 November 2021
Exponential EVs
The gap between electric vehicle uptake and the infrastructure to charge them is growing. The hassle that will cause could put drivers off
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Wednesday 10 November 2021
There are two planets at Cop
The success of the summit depends on the powerful wielders of the negotiating pen heeding the warnings of the young, of activists and of indigenous peoples
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Wednesday 3 November 2021
Financing forests
On day two of Cop more than 100 countries joined forces to protect 85 per cent of the world’s forests. What’s not to like? We’ve tried this before and it didn’t work, but apart from that it’s a big step forward
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Wednesday 27 October 2021
In a climate crisis, land is power
“Green lairds” are buying up Scotland to offset emissions and green their reputations. They can make a difference – but communities must have more say
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Wednesday 13 October 2021
To get young people back to offices, encourage don’t chide
The British government is trying to make people return to city centres. They’re going precisely the wrong way about it
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Wednesday 29 September 2021
What do the German elections mean for Cop26?
The truth is: very little. But that says more about Cop than it does about Germany, which has a chance to lead global climate policy once its governing coalition is decided
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Tuesday 21 September 2021
Can capitalism save the rainforests?
The global fight against climate change depends on us protecting the natural resources we still have left. We should be prepared to pay for that
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Wednesday 15 September 2021
The Arms Race
On Covid and climate, rich countries can’t afford to be selfish
Due to vaccine inequality, trust is breaking down ahead of the crucial Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow. Genuine solidarity is needed to solve both transnational crises
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Tuesday 17 August 2021
10 minute read
Sensemaker: Eurasian migration
What just happened
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Monday 16 August 2021
10 minute read
Sensemaker: Twenty years on
What just happened
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Thursday 3 June 2021
The second couple at No.10
The invisible fixer
When Tortoise journalists set out to find a photograph of one of the most influential figures in British politics, they were astounded to find that just one existed
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Tuesday 18 May 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: FTSE silent on disability
What just happened
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Thursday 29 April 2021
Nine FTSE 100 companies stopped reporting on gender pay last year
During the pandemic, the government changed the law so that companies no longer had to publicly disclose the difference between what they pay men and women. The latest update of Tortoise’s Responsibility100 Index reveals how 2020 changed the FTSE 100
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Thursday 29 April 2021
The problem with corporate climate targets
Emissions pledges have become a trendy tool through which companies show off their “green” credentials. They’re just talk
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Thursday 22 April 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Fossil fools
What just happened
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Tuesday 6 April 2021
Slow Reviews Part III
Toy Story
Ellen Halliday on the Pixar movie that changed the art, ambition and business of animation
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Tuesday 30 March 2021
Why Alex Salmond’s shambolic party launch has rocked Scottish politics
Streaming ineptitude overshadowed the former first minister’s online press conference, but his ambitions should be taken seriously
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Friday 26 March 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Genocide in Xinjiang?
What just happened
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Monday 15 March 2021
This is a reckoning
Women must be able to reclaim the streets – not just to walk but to wander and explore. Until we can walk without fear, we have very little freedom at all
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Wednesday 3 March 2021
The Covid Variants
Know your killer viruses
A global battle to contain Covid-19 is underway, with the vaccine pitted against the virus and its unpredictable mutations. What do we know about the variants now stalking the world?
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Thursday 11 February 2021
A year of Covid
No silver bullet
Our understanding of Covid, and of how to treat it, has grown enormously over the past year. But mortality hasn’t significantly fallen
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Friday 5 February 2021
The life and death of an English river
As the River Lea progresses to the Thames, it is sullied and poisoned. Its plight, shared by waterways all over the country, should not be ignored
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Thursday 4 February 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Dateline Brexit
What just happened
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Wednesday 3 February 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Science 3 – Covid 2
What just happened
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Tuesday 26 January 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Tesco’s awkward pay gap
What just happened
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Monday 25 January 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Tesco’s awkward pay gap
What just happened
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Friday 22 January 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Tomorrow in Moscow
What just happened
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Thursday 21 January 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: New US management
What just happened
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Thursday 14 January 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Trump vs. the rebels
What just happened
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Wednesday 13 January 2021
10 minute readSensemaker: Scorched earth
What just happened
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Friday 18 December 2020
Is the UK losing its edge on AI?
The country comes third in Tortoise’s AI Index, which seems impressive until you start looking closer…
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Thursday 3 December 2020
Who is leading the world in AI?
The UK slips back and China gains ground on the USA
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Friday 27 November 2020
Scottish Independence
Further reading
For those who want more answers to the Scottish Question
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Friday 20 November 2020
10 minute read
Sensemaker: RAF Space Command
What just happened
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Tuesday 13 October 2020
10 minute read
Sensemaker, 13 October 2020
What just happened
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Monday 26 December 2022
2022 picks – The Darwin job: the mystery of the vanishing notebooks
One sleuth, two notebooks – and a 20-year puzzle
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Monday 4 July 2022
The Darwin job: the mystery of the vanishing notebooks
One sleuth, two notebooks – and a 20-year puzzle
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Wednesday 18 May 2022
The LGBT+ activist
For more than fifty years, Peter Tatchell has been fighting for LGBT+ rights. His work isn’t done yet
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Monday 4 April 2022
Fallen women
Twenty-seven women. Falling. Off balconies, out of windows, from the top of multi-storey carparks. And there, in most of the cases, is a man, standing in the shadow of her fall. What if these women didn’t just fall, but were pushed?
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Thursday 3 March 2022
Adapt to survive
Flash flooding in Sydney comes in the same week a major report offered the ‘bleakest warning yet’ on the impacts of climate breakdown. But it’s not entirely out of our control yet.
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Wednesday 21 April 2021
China’s war on fashion
How the high street retailer H&M got caught in the middle of a fierce argument over modern slavery.
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Thursday 25 March 2021
You’re gonna need a bigger canal
The story of a giant ship, the Ever Given, and how it got stuck in the Suez Canal – costing billions in delays