A ‘dress rehearsal’ for life: inside the Manchester project helping homeless men rebuild Embassy Village offers 40 canal-side flats and support with budgeting, cooking and finding work, to help men start new lives and rediscover community

A new village for homeless people has opened in manchester. I find Embassy a very inspiring charity and I really hope this succeeds www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Charlotte Nichols MP on her rape trial ordeal – podcast MP for Warrington North shares her experience as a complainant in a rape trial where the man she accused was acquitted

On Today's podcast, MP Charlotte Nichols tells me about what it was like going through a rape trial and losing. It was an honour to be trusted with her story, which reveals so much about the criminal justice system in England. www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

What Nigel Farage will say for money The Reform UK leader has a lucrative side-hustle sending paid-for Cameo messages. But an analysis of more than 4,000 of them show they include videos for a neo-Nazi group and a rioter. Henry Dyer repo...

Fantastic video podcast with @helenpidd.bsky.social and the Today in Focus team talking about Farage on Cameo. Really brilliant editing and presentation of the material we’ve analysed.

www.theguardian.com/news/video/2...

On the ground in the byelection that could end Starmer – podcast Reform and the Greens both insist they can win Gorton and Denton from Labour – and if they do, it could be another nail in the prime minister’s coffin. Helen Pidd reports on how the candidates and vot...

I spent the last four weeks on the ground in Gorton and Denton for this special episode of Today in Focus www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Thanks fellow Helen! as you could probs tell, I had a tremendous time

This is why I went into journalism

‘Bring me a gigantic Gladiator who can cradle me like a baby!’: behind the scenes of the most joyous show on TV When it first returned to our screens, people said Gladiators was a tired format. They had clearly forgotten the joy of watching half-clad hulks with silly names go to battle, says superfan Helen Pidd...

Dignity is overrated. I had the best time going behind the scenes on the best show on telly (GLADIATORS!!!) www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

I didn't think about it at all at the time - it was just what we did. It was only a few years ago that I realised it was quite an unusual thing to do - and probably quite formative

I was five and visiting a psychiatric hospital. I had the time of my life! I toddled round the ward giving sweets to old women and wondering why so many of them were clutching teddies. It taught me not to be scared of people with mental illness

A nice one from the festive archives about how my family used to spend Christmas at a psychiatric hospital www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Thanks Michael!

Thanks Jon! V kind of you to say so.

Infighting, broken promises and insisting on the national anthem: what seven months of Reform UK in charge actually looks like Nigel Farage’s party is gunning for power – so what is it like in the places where they’ve already got it? We embedded with Lancashire county council to find out what happens when rhetoric meets reali...

What happens when Reform UK takes over your local council? I’ve been keeping very close tabs on Lancashire County Council since May for this magazine piece www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Donald Trump’s Epstein U-turn

Delighted to talk to the great @helenpidd.bsky.social for the latest @todayinfocus.bsky.social - all about the Epstein files open.spotify.com/episode/4B8s...

On the ground in the refugee and asylum capital of Britain - podcast Helen Pidd heads to Crawley, West Sussex, the place in the UK with the highest number of asylum seekers and supported refugees relative to its population

With producer @eleanorbiggs.bsky.social I spent a few months reporting from Crawley, the migrant hotel capital of Britain, to look at whether the disproportionate numbers of asylum seekers and refugees (mostly Afghans) put really do put pressure on services www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Yes I started off as a music critic. A bad one. Critiquing music in an entertaining and illuminating — but fair — way is actually really hard.

The Guardian has only ever published 15 zero-star reviews. Here they all are As Kim Kardashian’s All’s Fair sets a new low for TV, we revisit every single thing our critics have mercilessly panned. Brace yourself for the Mount Rushmore of rubbish!

20 years ago I became part of a select club of Guardian critics who awarded something zero stars www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

The downfall of Jair Bolsonaro – podcast Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has been handed a 27-year sentence for an attempted coup – is there any way his political career can continue? Tom Phillips reports

Today’s podcast on the downfall of Jair (with the brilliant @helenpidd.bsky.social) www.theguardian.com/world/audio/...

Thank you!

Today in Focus Daily News Podcast · Updated daily · Hosted by Nosheen Iqbal and Helen Pidd, Today in Focus brings you closer to Guardian journalism. Combining storytelling with insightful analysis and personal testi...

For today’s podcast I went to talk to protesters outside my local asylum hotel in Stockport, as well as marchers at Tommy Robinson’s march to try to understand if the far right is now a mass movement podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t... -ñ

This is a lot more interesting than Henry makes it sound

Thank you!

Thank you!

Sun, sea and struggle: growing up in England’s coastal towns – podcast Helen Pidd grew up in Morecambe, and life in seaside towns has only got harder since she was a teenager. She went back to find out why

I’m so thrilled that the Guardian’s @helenpidd.bsky.social made an excellent Today in Focus podcast about the seaside town of Morecambe for Seascape’s Against The Tide series. Please do take a listen, it’s extremely thorough and full of inspiring young people

www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Thanks AK!

Thanks Anita!

Very cool to be nominated as best podcast host alongside some actual legends. Bet Louis Theroux is quaking in his boots. I’m nothing without the amazing Today in Focus team @theguardian.com #BritishPodcastAwards

Will the Epping hotel riots spark another summer of unrest? – podcast A year after Southport, what’s driving the turmoil in Essex? Ben Quinn reports

Will the Epping hotel riots spark another summer of unrest?

Spoke to @helenpidd.bsky.social on the Guardian’s Today In Focus Podcast

www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

‘All those posh apartments. It’s a playground for the rich’: is Manchester turning into London? £6 a pint, £199 a month for gym membership, £1,200 to rent a studio flat? The Guardian’s former North of England editor asks if the city she’s worked in for 12 years is changing for the better – or wo...

Is manchester becoming too much like london? Come with me on a trip around a high rise city of OnlyFans creators, £6 pints and ever richer overseas students www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The Guardian announces new appointments The Guardian has announced a number of appointments.

It’s official - the north could not be in safer hands with @joshhalliday.bsky.social in charge. Defo recommend a midlife career pivot. www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/the...

Different drum: novice snares gig in the greatest free show on Earth The annual brass band battle, fought across villages on the old Lancashire-Yorkshire border, is part Wacky Races and part Brassed Off

It's my favourite day of the year: Whit Friday! I'm not playing in "the greatest show on earth" this year, just spectating. But here is my dispatch from the front lines of brass banding in 2016 www.theguardian.com/music/2016/m...