Helen Pidd

Manchester

Northern England Editor at The Guardian

Presenter of Today in Focus, the Guardian's award winning daily podcast. Former North of England editor. Contact me in confidence via [email protected]

Articles

Making America pregnant again: the pro-natalist movement - podcast

4 days ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Moira Donegan |Ruth Abrahams |Alex Atack |Tony Onuchukwu |Elizabeth Cassin

Why is pro-natalism – the idea that society should focus on producing children – a growing movement in the US? The Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan tells Helen Pidd: “This is not something that average people in the US are crying out for. People are having the number of children that they desire and think that they can support, right?
What happened to body positivity? - podcast

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Jenny Stevens |Kate McCusker |Ivor Manley |Elizabeth Cassin

“There’s lots of chat at the moment about #SkinnyTok,” Jenny Stevens, the Guardian’s deputy features editor, tells Helen Pidd. “The TikTok influencers, TikTok users, who are documenting their extreme weight-loss journeys. “I’ve looked through that hashtag and I think, wow, some of these people are really, really unwell.
On trial for having an abortion - podcast

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Hannah Al-Othman |Hattie Moir |Ivor Manley |Sami Kent

In November 2020, in the middle of a national lockdown, Nicola Packer found out she was pregnant. It was a shock, she tells the Guardian’s north of England correspondent, Hannah Al-Othman. Nicola hadn’t really thought she was pregnant, didn’t even believe she could conceive and had never wanted children anyway. After a call to the UK’s largest abortion provider, she was sent pills to terminate her pregnancy. They believed, she was told, she was about six weeks pregnant.
A horrifying end to Liverpool’s parade: Today in Focus Extra - podcast

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Andy Hunter |Alex Atack |Eli Block |Elizabeth Cassin

“I was just coming towards the end of writing what was a positive, upbeat overview of the whole day,” Andy Hunter, a Guardian football correspondent based in Liverpool, tells Helen Pidd. “Wrote about how they were memories that would last a lifetime. And then just as I was finishing that and about to send it, I got a call from the desk to say, have you seen what’s just happened?
The Olympics’ dirtiest race ever? - podcast

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Esther Addley |Alex Atack |Tony Onuchukwu |Homa Khaleeli |Elizabeth Cassin

“I felt very ready on the start line. I was like: ‘OK, this is it. This is what we’ve worked for.’”For the British Olympic athlete Lisa Dobriskey, reaching the women’s 1500m final at the London 2012 Games was a huge moment. She’d come fourth in Beijing four years earlier. This was her chance, in front of a home crowd. When the race began, Lisa remembers feeling alarmed at how slow it was because she knew at some point it was going to take off. And then it did.
Gary Younge on being pigeonholed as a black journalist - podcast

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Gary Younge |Courtney Yusuf |Rudi Zygadlo |Sami Kent

“We have people who can write about this,” the journalist Gary Younge remembers an editor once telling him about a column he had written on Bosnia. “Can you add an ethnic sensibility to this?”For Younge, being one of the few black columnists in the British press has not been easy; rather, it has been a constant struggle, he explains, to avoid being pigeonholed as a journalist only ever interested in race.
‘An island of strangers’: is this the Labour party voters wanted? - podcast

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Nesrine Malik |Eleanor Biggs |Rudi Zygadlo |Sami Kent

On Monday, Keir Starmer announced the government’s latest proposals to reduce immigration. The plans included restricting visas for students and skilled workers, tightening up English language requirements and – perhaps most drastically – aiming to end all overseas recruitment of social care workers by 2028. Yet maybe more notable than the policies was the language Starmer used to introduce them.
The heroic Guardian reporter who documented the rise of the Nazis - podcast

4 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Philip Oltermann |Courtney Yusuf |Elizabeth Cassin

Frederick Augustus Voigt was the Manchester Guardian’s Berlin correspondent between 1920 and 1932. In this episode, two fellow former Berlin correspondents, Helen Pidd and Philip Oltermann, discuss Voigt’s incredible reporting on the rise of Nazi Germany. “I think he saw that it was important not to give the Nazis the ‘both sides’ treatment,” Philip says.
Sabotage and secret identities: Russia’s spy network - podcast

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Helen Pidd |Shaun Walker |Hannah Moore |Homa Khaleeli |Elizabeth Cassin

Shaun Walker is the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent and author of The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West. He tells Helen Pidd about the history of Russia’s ‘Illegals’ programme, and how Russian intelligence operates in western countries today. “It’s become much harder for Russia to send its operatives abroad,” Shaun tells Helen.
Labour v Reform UK: on the road in Runcorn - podcast

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Kiran Stacey |Helen Pidd |Hattie Moir |Eleanor Biggs |Tom Glasser |Courtney Yusuf | +1 more

Runcorn, a town in Cheshire, has not been the most politically interesting place in recent memory. In fact Runcorn and Helsby has been a safe Labour seat for decades. Then the MP Mike Amesbury resigned after punching a constituent, triggering a byelection. Now Reform UK are nipping at Labour’s heels in the battle for the ward. Helen Pidd has been out in the town to find out what voters think about the government and Nigel Farage.