Deep Dive

Nigel Farage has resigned as MP for Clacton and triggered a by-election in his own constituency; a dramatic gamble designed to get ahead of a parliamentary standards inquiry into his failure to declare a £5 million personal gift from a crypto billionaire and the undisclosed use of a townhouse near Buckingham Palace rented by close ally, and convicted felon, George Cottrell. The Reform leader says...

This week, we unpick the government’s long-awaitied Defence Investment Plan (DIP) and ask very simply: is it enough? Joining Chris Pleasance for a deep dive into the document is the Daily Mail’s Defence Editor Mark Nicol, who’s been pouring over the details since Keir Starmer unveiled it on Tuesday. Read Mark's reporting here: https://www.dailymail.com/profile-881/mark-nicol.html Host: Chris Pleas...

David Beckham was handed a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this month, flanked by Victoria, Tom Cruise and three of his four children. The fourth, Brooklyn, was nowhere to be seen. Six months on from the explosive Instagram statement that tore the lid off the family's private war, the rift is only getting messier, with a "choreographed" doorstep visit from sister Harper and a reported £750,000...

After American and Israeli airstrikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February, many wondered whether Iran's theocratic regime was finally facing collapse. That came after tens of thousands of protesters had died earlier in the year rising up against the regime. But four months later, the US has signed an interim peace deal extending the ceasefire between the two countries. That deal has drawn cr...

Andy Burnham has won a landslide in the Makerfield by-election, a result that puts him in a commanding position ahead of the looming Labour leadership contest. Reform came second with 35%, with Restore Britain - the hardline party founded by Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe after his explosive fallout with Nigel Farage - taking 7%, votes that may otherwise have gone to Reform. Earlier this week, host...

Twenty seven people are homeless. At least twelve police officers have been injured. Burnt out cars litter the streets. How did this happen? This week, senior reporter James Fielding has been on the ground in Belfast following a vicious stabbing and a spate of anti-immigration riots.  He joins Deep Dive host Chris Pleasance to make sense of the unrest as shellshocked communities pick their wa...

A broken down aircraft carrier. An entire fleet of hunter-attack submarines unfit for war. Dozens of RAF jet pilots stuck in a training backlog. Why are Britain’s armed forces plagued by disaster and delay? This week, defence editor Mark Nicol has been writing about the dire state of Britain’s armed forces, leading the Daily Mail’s Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless campaign. He joins Deep Dive host...

How did some of the worst Nazi war criminals slip through the fingers of the Allies and end up living freely in South America, the Middle East, Africa, and even… the US? Reporter Darren Boyle has written a piece for the Daily Mail about the secret Nazi 'ratlines' - the covert networks that funnelled Hitler's henchmen out of Europe at the end of World War Two. He joins Deep Dive host Chris Pleasanc...

When the US began bombing Iran back in February, Iran's response was swift: close the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil flows. America has since added its own blockade on top of that, reducing traffic through this artery of global trade to a trickle. At the time, economists warned this could lead to global economic meltdown, but three months late...

In 2009, John Warboys - the so-called black cab rapist - was convicted and jailed, believed to have attacked more than 100 women, making him one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders. Nearly twenty years later, ITV's drama Believe Me has brought his crimes back into the national conversation. Host Nicola Thorpe speaks to two of those survivors: Carrie Johnson, who has written about her experien...

Labour is in freefall. After catastrophic local election results - losing 38 councils, nearly 1,500 councillors, their worst-ever showing in Scotland, and a devastating collapse in Wales after 27 years in power - Keir Starmer is clinging to power. Cabinet ministers are briefing against him, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting has already briefed allies that he'll launch a formal leadership challeng...

Britain goes to the polls on Thursday - and the political map is being redrawn in real time. Daily Mail columnist Guy Adams has spent a week on the campaign trail, canvassing across Wales, and what he found should alarm both Labour and the Conservatives. Labour are losing voters to Reform on the right and the Greens on the left, while the Conservatives are fighting a "rear-guard action". But the s...

King Charles and Queen Camilla's state visit to the United States is already being hailed as a diplomatic triumph - but can royal charm do what politicians have failed to? Sarah Vine is joined by the Daily Mail's Richard Kay, reporting live from New York, to unpack every extraordinary moment of the first British state visit to the US since 2007. From Charles's barnstorming congressional address, c...

Senior reactor operator Leonid Toptunov was 25 years old when he sat down at the controls of Reactor Number Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was just after midnight on April 26, 1986. He would be dead within three days. At 1:23am and 44 seconds, a power surge of catastrophic proportions tore the 1,000-tonne concrete roof off the reactor and blasted the equivalent of 500 Hiroshima bomb...

For two months, Iran has held the global economy hostage through a narrow stretch of water and the world's most powerful military can't seem to do anything about it. With oil prices surpassing $100 a barrel; Trump's ceasefire extended for the fourth time; and negotiations deadlocked between US demands and Iranian hardliners who don't want to negotiate with Western officials, Chris Pleasance sits d...

Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022, at age 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, ending a remarkable 70-year reign. From taking her palace on the throne in the first televised coronation the country had ever seen through five Royal Jubilees, fifteen Prime Ministers, beginning with Winston Churchill and ending with Liz Truss, to the loss of of her ‘strength and stay’ of 73 years Prince Phili...

Iran's Supreme Leader is dead. Its military command has been shattered. Yet five days into the American-Israeli assault, Iran is firing back - at Israel, at the Gulf, and now at Turkey. Dubai, long flouted as the safest place in the Middle East, has been hit by drone and missile strikes. Ali Khamenei's son has emerged as the favourite to replace him, but Israel threatened on Wednesday to assassina...

Today, police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The former Duke of York can be questioned and held without charge for up to 24 hours from the moment he arrived at the police station this morning.  Andrew's new home - Wood Farm on the King’s Sandringham estate - is currently being searched by Thames Valley Police, along with his former residence,...

Following the explosive revelations in the latest release of Epstein files, historian Andrew Lownie joins Sarah Vine to unpack what we know. The conversation covers the evidence that Epstein ran a blackmail operation with Russian intelligence connections, the wider royal family's knowledge of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's activities, institutional cover-ups, and whether King Charles will address th...

ON January 19th 2026, the showbiz and celebrity world was rocked by a series of Instagram stories from Brooklyn Peltz-Beckham. There had long been reported a rift and unease between his parents, David and Victoria Beckham and that of his wife Nicole Peltz and her hugely wealthy and powerful family. Nothing however, prepared the world for what unfolded. Accusations of control and coercive behaviour...

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the unthinkable happened. Under cover of an electronic blackout, U.S. forces launched a lightning operation into Caracas and seized Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, flying him out of the country without a single American casualty. As shockwaves ripple across the globe, Deep Dive asks: what happens next when a superpower abducts a sitting head of state? Po...

Former Vietnam War fighter pilot Raymond Wagner toggled the radio transmit button on the right hand side of his Boeing 747-121's control yoke. 'Clipper 103 requesting oceanic clearance', he intoned, using the modulated aviation voice he'd honed over several decades flying. On the other end was Alan Topp, the Scottish Air Traffic Controller working more than 50 miles away in Prestwick, west of Glas...

Sir Mo is knighted – he's a four-time Olympic champion and national treasure. After years in the public eye, he confronts his complex past with a documentary that shocks the world and earns him a BAFTA. But in doing so, he unwittingly thrusts Mohamed into the spotlight; at the very moment his namesake's life seems to be turning around. Mohamed's Turkish visa expires and he's deported to Mogadishu...

Mohamed and his mother are reunited in Nairobi after almost 30 years apart. They take journalists Andy and Kamal with them as they retrace the life they shared here – recounting difficult memories as refugees in an unwelcoming city and sharing one of their most painful experiences: the story of their separation. As Sir Mo slowly lifted himself out of a difficult early life, Mohamed endured years o...

In 1993, an 8-year-old Mo Farah arrived in the UK as a refugee from war-torn Somalia. It would only be revealed 30 years later, through a documentary of his own making, that the Olympic champion was brought to the UK illegally under a false identity. His real name: Hussein Abdi Kahin. While the documentary uncovers an incredible story, it raises even more questions about the national treasure – an...