Mark and Pete

Danny Dyer, Britain's sewage scandal, polluted rivers, failing water companies and an enormous floating turd. Yes, really. The actor has taken to the River Thames with a giant inflatable poo, demanding an end to sewage pollution and calling for Britain's water industry to be returned to public ownership. It's a serious environmental campaign, apparently. Although it's difficult to maintain an enti...

Royal Mail is failing Britain. First-Class prices, Second-Class service, and a postal system that seems increasingly incapable of delivering the post. Quite an achievement, really, for an organisation whose principal purpose is, well, delivering things. A First-Class stamp now costs £1.80 , compared with just 41p in 2010. That's an increase of nearly 340%. And what do we get for this rather im...

Winston Churchill is out, hedgehogs are in, and the Bank of England has decided that Britain's greatest heroes should make way for wildlife. Yes, really. The man who helped save Britain from Nazi Germany is being replaced, eventually, by something that curls into a ball when frightened. Which, come to think of it, might be a fairly accurate description of British political leadership these day...

The Elgin Marbles, the Parthenon sculptures, the British Museum, Greece, cultural ownership, restitution and one of the longest-running arguments in European public life. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we ask the awkward but increasingly unavoidable question: should Britain finally give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece? The debate is back because Greece has renewed its pressure for the return o...

Esther Rantzen, Childline, The Silver Line, That’s Life!, consumer campaigning, British television history and the extraordinary legacy of one of the most recognisable broadcasters of the last half-century. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look back at the life of Dame Esther Rantzen, not simply as a television personality, though she was certainly that, but as someone who used fame, rather un...

Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory, his return to the White House, an extraordinary first day in office and his ambitions for Greenland. This Mark and Pete compilation revisits the beginning of Trump’s second term and some conversations that sound, listening back, suspiciously like advance notice. We thought we were recording a podcast. Parts of it now sound rather like a trailer. Bringing toget...

OpenAI may have cracked one of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. In this episode of Mark & Pete, we look at the extraordinary claim that an OpenAI research system has solved a 90-year-old problem connected to the Navier–Stokes equations, the equations used to describe how fluids move. That means water, air, blood flow, turbulence, weather systems, aircraft, oceans and quite a l...

The people building AI say it could destroy humanity, which is an unusually frank product review. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we ask: Do We Need a Kill Switch, or Just Kill AI? As artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, the argument about AI safety is getting rather harder to dismiss. Sam Altman and other industry leaders have raised serious concerns about where the technology could t...

Warren Buffett spent sixty years proving that patience pays, which is awkward news for everyone selling a six-week millionaire course. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we celebrate Warren Buffett’s investment philosophy, his business ethos and the unfashionable possibility that building something worthwhile might take a while. Quite a while, actually. You may need to sit down. As Buffett steps ba...

Here’s the episode 2 description, keeping the JLR story central but widening into the bigger British-industry and net-zero question. Jaguar Land Rover is cutting around 4,000 jobs, trying to save £1.7 billion and facing fierce competition from China, tariffs, rising costs and the lingering effects of a devastating cyberattack. Britain’s biggest carmaker is not going bust. But something is clearly...

Donald Trump is promising Americans a $5,000 payment if Republicans win control of Congress. He calls it a dividend. Critics call it a bribe. And somewhere in the middle sits one of the strangest election promises in recent memory. In this episode of Mark & Pete, we ask whether the proposed $5,000 Trump dividend is actually a reward for American economic success, a spectacular piece of politic...

Robotaxis have arrived in London. Uber and British autonomous-driving company Wayve have launched the UK’s first public autonomous ride-hailing service, using specially equipped all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E cars. You can now request an UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort and, if fate is feeling futuristic, a self-driving car may turn up instead. There is, however, one small detail. There is s...

Victoria Beckham Holdings has finally made a profit. After 18 years of fashion shows, beauty launches, celebrity cachet, private investment, substantial losses and, one assumes, quite a lot of very expensive beige, Victoria Beckham’s fashion and beauty business has posted its first operating profit. And not a tiny one either. For 2025, Victoria Beckham Holdings reported revenue of £129.8 million ,...

Keir Starmer resigns as MP, bringing an extraordinary political career to a rather abrupt close. After becoming Labour leader in 2020, winning a huge Commons majority in the 2024 UK general election, becoming Prime Minister and then leaving Downing Street in July 2026, Sir Keir has now decided to leave Parliament as well. So the question rather writes itself: was Keir Starmer Britain’s worst ever...

Britain’s favourite flowers, the occasions we buy them for, and one extraordinary donation of 17,000 white roses are at the heart of this episode of Mark and Pete. We look at why roses still dominate the British flower market, why flowers matter so much emotionally, and what happens when thousands of perfectly good blooms are rescued from the bin and turned into something useful. Because flowers a...

Why do advertisers use cute animals to sell us everything from toilet roll and insurance to paint, tea and batteries? In this episode of Mark and Pete, we celebrate Britain’s most memorable advertising animals, from the Andrex puppy and Compare the Market meerkats to the Dulux dog, Churchill the bulldog and those slightly unnerving PG Tips chimps. Because there is a principle here. A very successf...

Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80, and in this episode of Mark and Pete we pay tribute to one of the most remarkable, successful and strangely universally loved entertainers of the modern age. Singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, philanthropist and owner of rather more rhinestones than most regional theatres could manage between them, Dolly Parton became something far bigger than a cou...

Britain’s obesity crisis is getting worse, and the latest figures suggest younger adults are gaining weight faster than ever. According to the King’s Fund, obesity rates in England are now at record levels, with around 30% of adults living with obesity or severe obesity , roughly double the proportion seen in the early 1990s. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, the rise is even more striking. Around 18% are...

z E-scooter accidents in Britain are rising sharply, with hundreds of riders and pedestrians suffering serious injuries and hospitals seeing a worrying increase in children hurt while using electric scooters. They are fast, cheap, convenient and now thoroughly woven into city life. They are also, increasingly, a menace on Britain’s streets. In this episode of Mark and Pete , we look at the growing...

Ferrari’s first electric car has arrived , and the Ferrari Luce is causing exactly the sort of argument you would expect when the most famous maker of roaring petrol-engined supercars decides to plug one into the mains. The new fully electric Ferrari Luce has more than 1,000 horsepower, four electric motors, a top speed of around 192 mph and a claimed range of 329 miles. It will cost about £440,00...

Tomato sauce spill, Swaffham traffic, Norfolk news, lorry accidents, road closures and one enormous quantity of ketchup are the unlikely ingredients in this episode of Mark and Pete . Because sometimes the great machinery of world affairs pauses for a moment and Britain gives us the news story we actually need. A truck carrying tomato sauce overturned near Swaffham in Norfolk , spilling its load a...

Count Binface, Nigel Farage, the Clacton by-election, UK politics, protest voting and the strange state of British democracy are under discussion in this episode of Mark and Pete . Because something rather extraordinary has happened in Clacton. Count Binface, a man wearing a silver costume with what appears to be a bin on his head, came second. And not just “came second” in the sense of receiving...

Total Eclipse: Now I Understand the Fuss Total solar eclipse 2026, Spain, eclipse chasing, solar eclipse photography and the extraordinary experience of totality are at the heart of this episode of Mark and Pete . Pete has now seen his first total eclipse of the Sun, in Spain on 12 August 2026, and has come back with a fairly straightforward conclusion: everyone should see one. At least once. Pref...

£50,000 or £1 Million? The Coin Toss That Reveals How You Think is a fascinating look at decision making, risk, money psychology, behavioural economics and the strange things our brains do when a large amount of cash is suddenly dangled in front of us. The dilemma is beautifully simple. You are offered £50,000 guaranteed . You can take it, walk away, and quite reasonably feel that life has improve...

UK petrol theft, fuel drive-offs, rising petrol prices, shoplifting, retail crime and the cost-of-living squeeze are at the heart of this episode of Mark and Pete. Drivers are leaving filling stations without paying in growing numbers, retailers are reporting increasing theft across the board, and the obvious question is beginning to look rather difficult to avoid: why do so many petrol stations s...