Profile

Mark Clarke was once a rising star in the Conservative Party. He was a prominent figure who started and led 'RoadTrip2015', a project to bus young Conservatives into marginal seats to campaign door-to-door. Clarke was dubbed the 'Tatler Tory' after the magazine tipped him as a future minister. But he was recently expelled from the party following lurid allegations of blackmail and bullying, and th...

Online hacking collective Anonymous declared "total war" on IS after the attacks in Paris. Their tactics have often been controversial, sometimes illegal, and don't always win them support. As so-called Islamic State vows to fight back, what is Anonymous likely to achieve and will its strategy help or hinder the fight against extremism? Presenter: Becky Milligan Producer: Ben Crighton.

Known by many in her country as 'The Lady', Aung San Suu Kyi has become one of the world's most famous female politicians. And yet she has never exercised any power in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Under the country's current constitution, she is forbidden from becoming president. Will she find a way of ruling the country if, as is expected, her party The National League for Democracy wins thi...

She's the self-proclaimed Beyoncé of the House of Lords, calling herself a 'single lady' and an 'independent woman'. Baroness Tina Stowell is the Leader of the Upper House. She was in the spotlight this week after the Lords defeated the government over tax credits. After leaving school at 16, Baroness Stowell's journey to this position has been a discreet one. How will she negotiate the potentiall...

He's been a boxer, a bouncer and a bungee jumping coach. Now he's the Prime Minister of Canada. Justin Trudeau is going back to his childhood home, 24 Sussex Drive, the PM's residence in Ottawa. His father, Pierre Trudeau, was a previous resident. Justin Trudeau is young and charismatic. He might even be the world's first tattooed national leader. But who is he? What does he stand for? And can he...

Saudi Arabia's human rights record is firmly back in the spotlight. A teenage boy on death row for protesting. A British pensioner expecting to be lashed. Britain no longer willing to help train those running the Kingdom's jails. Our subject this week - Saudi interior minister Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef - is right in the thick of it. Mark Coles profiles the man who is a crucial counter-terrorism pa...

Bernie Sanders is a socialist and a grump. But is he also a future US president? Some 20,000 people recently turned out to hear Sanders speak - the sort of crowd Barack Obama would have been proud of in 2008. He is, it seems, an increasingly viable contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders has spent the last forty years attacking inequality and he is known for giving loud and i...

Gina Rinehart - one the world's richest women - is about to realise a lifelong dream: to own and operate her very own iron-ore mine. Rinehart's life has been defined by huge success and the staggering speed at which she has accumulated her enormous wealth - but also by family feuds which have pitted generations of her family against each other. Mark Coles profiles the controversial Australian bill...

Series of profiles of people who are currently making headlines.

Perching on Labour's new front bench are high-flying twin sisters: Angela and Maria Eagle. Angela is the new shadow business secretary. Maria has been given the defence brief. Mark Coles profiles the pair who - over 25 years in politics - have soared from Merseyside to the heart of Westminster. Producers: Hannah Barnes and Chloe Hadjimatheou.

He’s the bad boy of French literature. Loved and hated in equal measure. But who is Michel Houellebecq? Ed Stourton profiles the controversial novelist who loves to provoke.

Sir John Chilcot has been at the heart of some of the most important political events in recent decades - often in the background, unnoticed by most. It's only in recent years, since he was asked in 2009 to lead the inquiry into the Iraq War, that his name has come to the attention of the wider public. Now - nearly six years after he started - the Chilcot Report has yet to be published, and Sir Jo...

Dr Dre's first album for 16 years is top of the charts and a film charting the rise of NWA - his breakout 90s gangsta rap group - is playing to packed cinemas. Over the past 25 years Dr Dre has made an indelible mark on popular culture. After NWA he founded a record label and turned producer - making global stars of artists like Snoop Dogg and Eminem. And he's a hugely successful businessman. His...

Founder of the Ultimo lingerie brand Michelle Mone's rags to riches tale. Clever use of PR has helped make Michelle Mone one of Britain's most recognisable businesswomen. Now she has been made the government's new entrepreneurship tsar and is tipped for a place in the House of Lords. Presenter Mark Coles charts her journey from childhood poverty in Glasgow to a City penthouse overlooking the Thame...

Suddenly everyone's taking Jeremy Corbyn seriously. Dismissed by many as a fringe 'unelectable' figure in the Labour leadership campaign, a bearded vegetarian lover of Latin American revolutionaries, Commons rebellions and allotments, he's now making the running. Chris Bowlby explores what's shaped him, what sort of leader he'd be, and whether he really wants the top Labour job.

Billionaire Donald Trump, leading Republican candidate in the US Presidential race was in Scotland this week. Mark Coles asks if he has what it takes to get him to the White House.

Mhairi Black was yet to graduate when she was elected to the House of Commons in May - the youngest Member of Parliament for over a century. She overturned a 16,000 majority and ousted the veteran Labour MP Douglas Alexander to win Paisley and Renfrewshire South for the SNP. She's packed a lot in to the past few weeks: taking her seat in Parliament; sitting the final exam of her politics degree (d...

Mark Coles profiles the muckraker's muckraker, American journalist Seymour Hersh, who has challenged the official story of how Osama Bin Laden was killed. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer is one of the world's most famous investigative reporters. He exposed both the My Lai massacre, when US soldiers killed hundreds of civilians during the Vietnam war, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldie...

The last couple of weeks of the election campaign - and the erroneously narrow polls which highlighted the role of The Queen in the event of a hung parliament - brought to the attention of the public a man who has held arguably one of the most important jobs in Britain since 2007, but who remains largely unknown. He's Sir Christopher Geidt, Private Secretary to The Queen. He is her adviser on poli...

Earlier this week, Loretta Lynch was sworn in as the new US Attorney General. Brought up in North Carolina the daughter of a Baptist minister father and a mother who picked cotton as a young girl, Lynch is the first black woman to hold the position of the nation's top law enforcement official. Harvard-educated Lynch worked at several private law firms and has been a federal prosecutor, winning hig...

Mark Coles profiles Aidan Turner, the Irish actor who stars in Poldark, the BBC's most successful drama for a decade. Turner has won legions of fans as the brooding, scythe-wielding Cornish hero in the classic costume drama remake. Producers: Ben Crighton and Chloe Hadjimatheou.

With five World Championship titles already under his belt, Ronnie 'The Rocket' O'Sullivan will compete in Sheffield this weekend hoping to secure a sixth. He is seen by many as the greatest snooker player in history. O'Sullivan arrived on the professional snooker scene when he was just a teenager, and immediately caused a storm. His talent was never in doubt. When on form, he is unbeatable. But h...

We learned this week that Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent and Fearne Cotton are to voice a new run of the hit children's TV series Teletubbies. It's estimated that around a billion children in over 120 countries have watched Teletubbies but there have been no new episodes since 2001, and the imminent return of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po has made news around the world. But who, or what, are th...

This week Comedy Central announced that South African comedian Trevor Noah is to take over from Jon Stewart as host of The Daily Show. It was a surprise to many that a relative unknown was set to take on one of America's leading talk shows, but Noah's star has been rising fast in recent years. Already a well-known face on British TV and radio, thanks to his award-winning Edinburgh Fringe show back...

On Thursday evening seven party leaders will meet in an ITV studio for the much-anticipated general election debate. Some of them are - it's fair to say - rather less well known than others. Many viewers - in England, at least - will not know all that much about Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader. So, on Profile this week, Mark Coles has been finding out what makes her tick. Producer: Gemma Newby...