James was Director of BBC News and before that was Editor of The Times.
James Harding
Co-founder & Editor
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Tuesday 15 December 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News Special: what did we learn in 2020?
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Wednesday 9 December 2020
18:30-19:30 GMT
A ThinkIn with Ed Miliband
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Tuesday 8 December 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
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Tuesday 1 December 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
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Thursday 3 December 2020
08:30-15:00 GMT
The Global AI Summit
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Tuesday 20 October 2020
07:55-09:00 GMT
What can smart machines do for humankind and for you?
What role will robots play in society? And how best can they serve humanity?
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Wednesday 4 November 2020
18:25-20:00 GMT
US Election: The Result – what now?
As the votes were still being counted, we discussed the US election – why it played out in the way that it did, and what the outcome will mean for America and the world.
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Tuesday 24 November 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
How do we radically decarbonise our world, while meeting vital human needs?
How can we ensure that people and our planet can coexist harmoniously, and sustainably?
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Tuesday 10 November 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
Add your voice to the Tortoise editors’ weekly news conference. Bring story ideas and perspectives. Have your say.
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Tuesday 10 November 2020
07:55-09:00 GMT
Is Jack Ma the world’s greatest entrepreneur?
How powerful is Jack Ma?
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Monday 30 November 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
In conversation with P.J. O’Rourke on the state of the United States
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Wednesday 25 November 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
Settled but not resolved: what next for the opioid crisis?
We return to our first ever story, and investigate the opioid crisis in the context of the pandemic.
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Monday 16 November 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
What is the job of scientists? with Jim Al-Khalili
Have we misunderstood what science can and can’t do?
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Monday 9 November 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
In conversation with Lionel Barber: inside the corridors of power
Lionel Barber on the powerful and damned.
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Monday 19 October 2020
18:30-19:30 GMT
Members’ Open House
We want you to know how we’re doing, what’s changing in Tortoise, and to hear your feedback directly.
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Wednesday 21 October 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
Britain and slavery: Who profited and what should they do now?
What should companies that profited from slavery do now to make amends?
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Wednesday 28 October 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
How will the climate crisis transform the Middle East?
Covid-19 accelerated the transition to renewable energy as well as reducing the demand for, and price of, oil. Join James Harding, co-founder of Tortoise, with Dan Rabinowitz, author of The Power of Deserts, and other special guests to explore what such a shift in the market for global energy means for the geopolitics of the […]
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
12:55-14:00 GMT
Open News
Add your voice to the Tortoise editors’ weekly news conference. Bring story ideas and perspectives. Have your say.
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Tuesday 20 October 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
Add your voice to the Tortoise editors’ weekly news conference. Bring story ideas and perspectives. Have your say.
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Wednesday 14 October 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
Will Nicola Sturgeon lead Scotland to independence?
Have the twin pressures of Brexit and Covid gifted independence to the SNP?
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Tuesday 13 October 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
Add your voice to the Tortoise editors’ weekly news conference. Bring story ideas and perspectives. Have your say.
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Monday 12 October 2020
18:25-19:30 GMT
How do we live with loneliness?
Why is the 21st century the loneliest ever, and what can we do about it?
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Tuesday 29 September 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT
Open News
Add your voice to the Tortoise editors’ weekly news conference. Bring story ideas and perspectives. Have your say.
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Tuesday 15 September 2020
07:50-09:00 GMT
Why isn’t the ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory?
How can we make sure more companies commit to reporting on the ethnicity pay gap?
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Tuesday 8 September 2020
08:00-09:00 GMT
In other news, Brexit: what’s happening?
Has Covid 19 scuppered the UK’s chances of landing a deal, or could the government still pull it off?
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Monday 7 September 2020
18:30-19:30 GMT
Living Better: In conversation with Alastair Campbell on mental health
Listen to Alastair Campbell’s intensely personal story about coping with depression.
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Tuesday 1 September 2020
13:00-14:00 GMT Open News
Join the Tortoise editors and members from all over the world as, together, we grapple with the evolving live news agenda.
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Wednesday 22 July 2020
18:30-19:30 GMT
How do we get 2m under 25s into work?
Under-25s were two and half times more likely than others to have been working in the parts of the economy that shut-down in March.
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Monday 15 June 2020
18:30-19:30 GMT
Digital ThinkIn – Is there such a thing as a fair trial?
Is our justice system still fit for purpose or is wholesale judicial reform long overdue?
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Friday 15 May 2020
15:00-15:45 GMTSovereignty & surveillance: In conversation with Shoshana Zuboff
A vast and frighteningly obscure system has engulfed the citizen in today’s digital economies. The use of personal data is central to the working of this whole new form of capitalism; and the threat it poses to our privacy may be the single most considerable issue of our age. In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: […]
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Wednesday 22 April 2020
18:30-19:30 GMT
Crisis Leadership – Tony Blair
The UK’s former prime minister in conversation with James Harding.
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Tuesday 28 January 2020
08:00-09:00 GMT
What does Dominic Cummings think?
In the week of Brexit, we looked at what the PM’s chief advisor – the highly influential Dominic Cummings – means for investment in the north, defence procurement, the future of education; decision-making in government and more.
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Monday 23 November 2020
This week in Tortoise: Scottish independence
I hope this finds you in good spirits. The Tortoise website: we haven’t just upgraded the website, we’ve transformed it. Do please take a look around and let us know what you think. Scotland: will Scottish independence be one of the lasting consequences of 2020? Six years after Scotland voted No, much has changed. Brexit; […]
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Monday 16 November 2020
This week in Tortoise: Halloween 2020
A little Tortoise news first. We were shortlisted for seven British Journalism Awards at the end of last week. Less than two years since we launched, we’re particularly proud that its Tortoise’s investigative reporting and data-driven journalism that’s been recognised: Jane Martinson’s investigation into the Barclay brothers; Matthew d’Ancona’s reporting behind the scenes of Boris Johnson’s Downing […]
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Saturday 14 November 2020
Behind the News, 14 November 2020
Welcome to Behind The News, a podcast with our editor and co-founder James Harding from inside the Tortoise newsroom, where being behind the news is a point of pride. Travelling slower, but actually getting somewhere. In this week’s episode, we consider the decision made by several US news networks to cut away from President Donald […]
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Friday 13 November 2020
Donald Trump, importantly pathetic
The 45th president’s refusal to concede is laughable – but we ought to remember it
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Friday 25 September 2020
Harry Evans: restless, romantic… and relentless
Sir Harold Evans, Britain’s greatest newspaper editor, has died. In 14 years on The Sunday Times, he redefined the possibilities of journalism and inspired a generation – among them Tortoise editor James Harding
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Friday 31 July 2020
Unemployment
rishi sunak podcast man for the job transcript
[Audio clip: Sunak summer statement July 8: “People are anxious…left without hope.” ] Rishi Sunak isn’t the only one who’s anxious. There are 9.5 million people furloughed in the UK, their lives in limbo and uncertain as to whether the coming weeks will see them heading back to work or jobless. There are […]
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Monday 15 June 2020
The government is unwell
Britain’s Disease
The coronavirus affects some places and people worse than others. It has affected the UK worst of all. “We may be in a world once again of British exceptionalism,” one worried observer messaged me a month ago. “We could end up at this rate having both the worst health and the worst wealth outcome in […]
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Thursday 9 January 2020
Tech Nations: Apple
Apple podcast tech nations
For several 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. […]
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Saturday 28 November 2020
Episode 8: What’s the deal?
Securing a trade agreement with the EU has proved harder than initially suggested. Is politics in its current form equipped to deal with the complex reality of globalisation?
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Friday 27 November 2020
Pause for thought
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to take sabbatical isn’t, as some are suggesting, an abdication of responsibility. In fact, it’s an act of leadership
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Saturday 21 November 2020
Episode 7: Our Covid Inquiry
There are urgent questions to ask – of the government and the public sector. But also of ourselves – the media.
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Friday 20 November 2020
Good COP
A lot must be achieved at the postponed climate summit in Glasgow next year. Is David Cameron the man for the job?
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Saturday 14 November 2020
Episode 6: Truth to power
Were US news networks right to cut away from Donald Trump when he made baseless claims of voter fraud?
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Friday 13 November 2020
Donald Trump, importantly pathetic
The 45th president’s refusal to concede is laughable – but we ought to remember it
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Friday 6 November 2020
Episode 5: The State of the States
In the wake of a messy election, what do the results tell us about the US today? Is America really as divided as everyone says?
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Friday 6 November 2020
What Sunak should do now
Britain’s finance minister has been running behind the pandemic. Here’s how he can get ahead
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Friday 30 October 2020
Go Ngozi
Who will be the next director general of the World Trade Organisation? Who cares? But, in truth, these are the sorts of leaders who could guide us out of the current mess
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Friday 30 October 2020
Episode 4: Vaccines
This week on Behind the News, the podcast that takes you inside our newsroom, we check in with Matt d’Ancona, who’s working on an audio essay on coronavirus vaccines and the big political decisions they’ll require.
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Friday 23 October 2020
A shrinking country
With No.10 representing just England, the Union really is at risk of breaking up
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Friday 23 October 2020
Episode 3: It’s complicated
This week on Behind the News, the podcast that takes you inside our newsroom, we’re taking a deeper look at the contracts the government has rushed through during the pandemic; and we try to make sense of JK Rowling’s intervention in the gender identity debate.
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Monday 19 October 2020
Recession 2021
Alistair Darling and Mervyn King, who were both at the centre of the 2008 crisis, talk to James Harding about what’s coming next
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Friday 16 October 2020
Just the start
Mark Zuckerberg’s choice to ban Holocaust denial on Facebook is undoubtedly the right one. But who adjudicates for such decisions in parts of the world where he doesn’t know or understand the issues? What about the untruths and conspiracy theories that don’t cross his radar?
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Friday 16 October 2020
Episode 2: Beyond 2020
This week on Behind The News, the podcast that takes you inside the Tortoise newsroom, we’re starting to think about stories on the other side of the US election and into 2021. James chats to Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff under Obama who’s plugged into Biden’s transition team, and Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6.
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Friday 9 October 2020
Episode 1: Welcome to our newsroom
This week, we talk to Louise Tickle about an investigation we have just begun into hidden homicides; two great economic thinkers – Larry Summers at Harvard and Torsten Bell at the Resolution Foundation – tell us why governments need to keep borrowing and spending.
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Friday 9 October 2020
Chumocracy Inc.
There are echoes of 2008 in the arguments about the reputation of business
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Friday 2 October 2020
The prime minister’s veil
We know startlingly little about Boris Johnson’s state of health or the health of his finances – much less than Americans have come to expect they should know about their President. In the week when President Trump’s tax returns finally saw the light of day it’s time we looked again. What’s legitimately private for a British prime minister, and what does the public interest demand that we should see?
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Friday 2 October 2020
The prime minister’s veil
We know startlingly little about Boris Johnson’s state of health or the health of his finances – much less than Americans have come to expect they should know about their President. In the week when President Trump’s tax returns finally saw the light of day it’s time we looked again. What’s legitimately private for a British prime minister, and what does the public interest demand that we should see?