A journey into the biggest by-election in history
I find myself outside the Cross Keys pub, a huge red brick building on Chapel Street in Ashton-in-Makerfield. I stood on this same spot in the days before the Makerfield by-election. I remember that because I saw a young lad dropping a lesser-seen plastic straw to the ground. I told him not to litter, and […]
Thank you, Ann
I wasn’t really looking forward to doing my Times Radio show last night. Our top story was the murder of Ann Widdecombe. It was on every front page during the paper review. It was the subject of a lot of the texts from the audience. And it all felt a bit surreal. In recent years, […]
Welcome to Fakerfield
When I reached for my phone on Friday afternoon, bleary-eyed from an all-nighter, it wasn’t the first time something I’d said at 3am had got me into trouble. This time, though, it wasn’t that I’d accidentally insulted my friend’s new partner after a few too many pints. My phone was buzzing from an exchange I’d […]
Newsletter: the man who ruined the internet
I am currently enjoying the rarest of treats for the parent of a toddler: a week to myself. Michaela has taken our daughter Molly on a trip with some family and I have been left behind to bask in the momentary stillness of a usually chaotic home. I’ll get an early night, I thought to […]
Red lights and red flags
Sometimes, when I am driving home from hosting my late night Times Radio show, I hit a red traffic light at a roundabout near MediaCity. I think you know where this is going. It’s 01:30. There is nobody around. The red light is for a slip road off the main dual carriageway. It isn’t a […]
The story I didn’t have time to tell you…
A few years ago I made a documentary about a man who claims to be God… and the people who follow him. But there was one story we didn’t quite get time to tell. If you are hearing about this for the first time, I know what you’re thinking: that sounds a bit like a […]
Newsletter: The Pale Blue Dot
It was a couple of hours before Donald Trump promised to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age that humanity did something extraordinary. Under an eruption of blinding white steam and churning orange fire, hundreds of tons of metal and four intrepid humans were thrust into space. The launch of Artemis II is the culmination […]
Charlie Veitch and the New Media
“Grab your popcorn and enjoy your front row seat to the collapse of modern Britain” Last week, I wrote about how a dystopian view of modern Britain is thriving on TikTok. Some people are being served video-after-video on their heavily curated For You feed that depicts a world where everything is broken and everyone is […]
We Are Not a Conspiracy School – BBC Radio 4
Deep in the English countryside, at the end of a winding country late… a sign: NO TRESPASS. STRICTLY BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. If you listen carefully, you can hear the sounds of children playing, carried along by the breeze. Just beyond the hostile sign, there is a place – built around barns, marquees and organic allotments […]
Searching for Nicola – two years on.
This month marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of Nicola Bulley – the mum of two who went missing in Lancashire, sparking a media and online frenzy. Neighbours, day-trippers, police, independent investigators and an army of YouTubers, TikTokers and amateur detectives descended onto the scene. And… so did I. Not to try and crack […]