Mark and Pete

Penelope Keith has died, and Britain has lost one of its most distinctive actresses. In this episode we celebrate the remarkable life and career of Dame Penelope Keith, looking back at The Good Life , To the Manor Born , British television comedy, classic sitcoms, stage acting, and the enduring appeal of one of the country’s finest performers. We ask why her work still feels fresh decades later, a...

Wimbledon is changing before our eyes. For nearly two decades, tennis fans became wonderfully spoiled as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic turned greatness into something that almost felt routine. Every summer seemed to end with one of them lifting the trophy. Then, rather rudely, time remembered to keep moving. In this episode we explore the changing of the guard at Wimbledon, the ri...

America is 250 years old, and somehow still has the energy of a teenager with a credit card, a rocket programme, and a very firm opinion about everything. In this episode, we celebrate the United States of America at 250, looking back at the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, American freedom, national identity, faith, democracy, innovation, and the extraordinary...

The Great British Bank Disappearing Act is leaving towns, villages, pensioners, disabled people, small businesses and cash users without proper access to local banking services. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the rapid closure of UK bank branches, the decline of cash machines, the rise of online banking, and the awkward little question nobody in a glass office seems very keen to answ...

How to get a job in a declining market is becoming one of the biggest questions facing workers in Britain, especially as AI skills, digital literacy and retraining move rapidly from “useful extra” to “apparently essential by next Tuesday.” In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the UK jobs market, the skills employers are now demanding, and whether ordinary applicants are being asked to beco...

King Charles has paid a £12.9 million tax bill, but is the royal tax system really fair? In this episode of Mark and Pete, we examine the King’s personal tax payment, royal finances, the Duchy of Lancaster, the Sovereign Grant and the rather peculiar constitutional arrangement whereby the monarch pays tax voluntarily, rather than because HMRC has sent a brown envelope marked, in effect, “Your Maje...

British pubs, pub culture, the perfect pint and one Essex barmaid’s extraordinary 53-year career come together in this episode of Mark and Pete. Sally Ward began pulling pints on her eighteenth birthday and, more than half a century later, has finally called time. Fifty-three years behind the bar. That is rather more stability than British politics has managed, and with noticeably better customer...

UK heatwave warnings, record-breaking June temperatures and the great climate argument arrive together in this episode of Mark and Pete, as Britain swelters, schools struggle, railway lines complain, and almost everybody discovers that their house was designed to retain heat with the grim efficiency of a Victorian oven. The UK has now recorded its hottest June day on record, with a provisional tem...

Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham and the future of the Labour Party collide in this episode of Mark and Pete, as we examine Burnham’s decisive Makerfield by-election victory, the growing pressure on the Prime Minister, and the increasingly awkward question now hovering over Westminster: is Starmer finished? Burnham returned to Parliament with more than 54 per cent of the vote and a majority of over 9,20...

Elon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire after the SpaceX IPO, and in this episode of Mark and Pete we ask the fairly obvious, slightly uncomfortable question: can one man have too much money? SpaceX going public has pushed Elon Musk’s net worth beyond one trillion dollars, at least on paper, which is a phrase doing a heroic amount of work. He does not, presumably, have the sum sitting...

Smart devices, dumb students and exam cheating. A title which is, admittedly, a little unfair to dumb students, many of whom at least have the decency to fail honestly. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the growing problem of exam cheating in Britain, as Ofqual warns that pupils are using smart glasses, hidden earpieces, internet-connected watches and other tiny electronic contraptions...

Can Britain still defend itself? It sounds like the sort of question once heard in gloomy pubs from men who owned atlases and distrusted decimalisation. Yet here we are, asking it seriously. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at Britain’s armed forces, the shrinking Army, shortages of personnel, ageing equipment, thin ammunition stocks, delayed defence spending and the uncomfortable possibi...

Two British brothers have completed an astonishing 20,000 rides on The Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which is impressive, slightly baffling, and probably not what the designers meant by customer loyalty. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the extraordinary roller coaster record set by twin brothers Mark and Colin Brown, who have spent years repeatedly riding one of Britain’s most...

Steven Spielberg believes humanity may discover extraterrestrial life within our lifetime, which is either the beginning of the greatest scientific revelation in history or an elaborate way of making everyone look up from their phones for five minutes. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at Spielberg’s comments about UFOs, UAPs, alien life and the belief that we may not be alone in the unive...

The Bayeux Tapestry is coming back to Britain, nearly 1,000 years after the Battle of Hastings, and naturally everyone is being very calm and sensible about it. By which we mean there are special crates, vibration tests, conservation reports, political speeches, nervous curators, and the faint sound of historians breathing into paper bags. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the extraordi...

Tony Blair has accused Keir Starmer’s Labour government of lacking a coherent plan, which is a little like being told your sermon has no structure by a man who once preached for three hours and then invaded the notices. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at Tony Blair’s criticism of Keir Starmer, the growing sense of drift around the Labour government, and the uncomfortable question now han...

Births in England and Wales have fallen again, for the fourth record-low year in a row, and the numbers are not exactly whispering. They are standing in the kitchen at midnight, holding a mug of tea, saying, “We may have a problem here.” In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the dramatic fall in the birth rate, the latest ONS figures, and what they reveal about family, fertility, money, hou...

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, has admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the Scottish National Party. Which is quite a sentence, even by the standards of modern politics, where the bar is now lying somewhere in a ditch wearing a hi-vis jacket. In this episode of Mark and Pete , we look at the Peter Murrell SNP scandal, the polit...

Bread. Eggs. Milk. Cheese. Butter. Baked beans. Not exactly the shopping list of an oligarch. Yet in recent years these everyday staples have become noticeably more expensive, and for many families the weekly shop now feels less like a routine errand and more like a minor financial event. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at the continuing rise in food prices and ask why so many people fee...

After twenty-two long years, Arsenal are champions again. The jokes about “bottling it” can finally be retired, at least temporarily, and somewhere in North London a generation of supporters are still wandering around in a state of emotional confusion, unsure whether to sing, cry or simply phone relatives they have not spoken to since the Wenger era. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at Ar...

Judith Chalmers has died at the age of 90, bringing to a close one of the most remarkable careers in British broadcasting. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we remember the woman who became the face of travel television and helped generations of Britons discover the wider world long before smartphones, online booking forms and budget airline baggage disputes became part of everyday life. For decad...

Paul McCartney is helping to open up one of the most famous addresses in music history, 3 Savile Row, including access to the rooftop where The Beatles played their final public performance in January 1969. Which raises an interesting question. Why on earth do people still care? In this episode of Mark and Pete, we wander from a cold London rooftop into much deeper territory. The Beatles broke up...

Britain lost Eurovision again, which now happens with such regularity it practically counts as a national tradition. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we ask the increasingly uncomfortable question: should the UK still bother entering the Eurovision Song Contest at all? From political voting blocs and changing European culture to glitter cannons, novelty acts, and the strange annual ritual of Brit...

Why does every British Prime Minister now seem doomed almost immediately? In this episode of Mark and Pete, we explore whether the job of Prime Minister has quietly become impossible. From Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, modern British politics increasingly feels less like leadership and more like surviving a public psychological experiment conducted by Twitter, the Tr...

zAmazon drone delivery UK trials have finally become reality and, honestly, it feels exactly like Britain would make the future feel: slightly exciting, faintly ridiculous, and only a few minutes away from being shouted at by somebody in slippers holding a mug of tea. In this episode of Mark and Pete, we look at Amazon’s first proper drone package deliveries in Britain, what they mean for technolo...