Kevin Gopal

Manchester

Journalist at Freelance

Manchester-based freelance journalist and editor - https://t.co/SH47Go8PrP

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Articles

The Lead Untangles: A pensions crisis that threatens to derail young futures

1 month ago | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

Introducing The Lead Untangles: In an era where misinformation is actively and deliberately used by elected politicians and where advocates and opposers of beliefs state their point of view as fact, sometimes the most useful tool reporters have is to help readers make sense of the world. The Lead Untangles will now be delivered via email each Friday by The Lead and focuses on a different complex, divisive issue with each edition.
A river is keeping a local school's lights on - is this a community solution to Britain's energy crisis?

1 month ago | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

Nestled in the Ribble Valley - consistently ranked as one of the UK’s best places to live - is Whalley, a large village built around the banks of the River Calder. And the community-based hydro scheme constantly turning in that river could be part of making the country a more sustainable and energy-efficient place. Hydro power has paid investors five per cent interest most years, and many of the local schools in Whalley are now covered with solar panels.
The Lead Untangles: The case for a wealth tax

2 months ago | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

At a glance factsThere are growing calls for a wealth tax as an alternative to Rachel Reeves’s current plans to balance the books through harsh cuts in welfare spending and elsewhere.
Hit by the household benefit cap

Feb 18, 2025 | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

Sophie hadn’t even heard of the household benefit cap when it hit her. But then she knew. The 28-year-old from Blackpool had worked since she was 16, as a special needs teacher in a primary school and then as a carer. She was living with her son, now four, and her youngest sister, to whom she was a guardian. She was working four days a week and receiving Universal Credit when she gave birth to her daughter last April.
Misidentified and wrongly convicted: Ademola Adejeji can resume law career after finally being cleared in court

Jan 16, 2025 | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

Three Manchester men convicted of conspiring violent revenge for the death of their friend in a case where prosecutors used drill music lyrics and social media messages as evidence of their gang membership will be freed after a successful appeal. But appeals by four others among the so-called Manchester 10 were rejected in a Court of Appeal judgement yesterday [15 January] described by campaigners as “bittersweet”.
"The frontline is here, right now"

Dec 10, 2024 | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

It’s a tense enough moment on its own. HOPE not Hate’s undercover journalist Harry Shukman is filming covertly inside an Athens restaurant, hoping, over a dry plate of fish, to extract the name of a Silicon Valley funder of the European far right. Then, his handler Patrik Hermansson decides he too needs undercover pictures of the dinner, and strolls past the restaurant windows shooting from the hip on his phone. The tension ratchets up.
Uncertainty over Tees Transporter bridge repair funding

Nov 23, 2024 | teesside.thelead.uk | Leigh Jones |Kevin Gopal

Here it is, the moment all round-dodgers have feared… Part of this, the tenth edition, will be behind a paywall. If you have a free subscription, you’ll still receive the newsletter every Wednesday and Sunday, however, part of your weekend edition will now be for paying subscribers only.
The North is short of over 70,000 social housing units. Can Rayner fix it?

Nov 21, 2024 | national.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

Barry Lanza was given just minutes to pack his bags and leave the Blackpool flat he’d called home for 36 years when the building was condemned. The 72 year old, who has a brain tumour, prostate cancer and COPD, was forced to pack his medication and head to a guest house with his two chihuahuas, before paying for two nights in a Travelodge at his own expense and then staying with friends. “It’s a nightmare,” says Lanza.
'Short-changed': The secrecy and intrigue of Ben Houchen’s mayoral run

Nov 12, 2024 | teesside.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

By Kevin Gopal, first published 20 March 2024Michael Gove has given Lord Houchen six months to put his house in order – but that assumes the Teesside mayor will still be in power. Houchen, ennobled in Boris Johnson’s resignation list in 2023, faces an election in May to gain a third term. Although the controversial mayor won 2021’s election with a huge 73 per cent of the vote, he’s likely to take his share of the backlash facing the Conservatives nationally.
Inside the vital service supporting Teesside's most deprived

Nov 12, 2024 | teesside.thelead.uk | Kevin Gopal

By Kevin Gopal, first published 03 April 2024Both of Tonia Nixon’s phones are ringing. On the other end of the one she can answer is a father with a six-month baby in desperate need of a cot. The call she can’t respond to at the moment probably comes with a similar request. Nixon is sitting at a table between the kitchen and the clothes racks of Tees Community Hub, which she founded in a New Skelton housing association building in 2020.