The Lead Digest: Clair Obscur, Steve Rotheram and the radicalisation of middle-aged men

Our round-up from The Lead’s team – everything we’ve been reading, listening to, scrolling and watching each week.

Here at The Lead, we like to consume just as much as we create, which is why we spend a little time each week rounding up our favourite stories, books, podcasts and films to offer our readers a sample of the work that informs our world.

Ed enjoyed this interesting profile on Steve Rotheram. He spoke with him and interviewed him at Convention of the North back in February. It was interesting how there was a big throng/crowd of journos around Burnham while Steve loitered near the back of the room quietly but was very open to speaking. He had been for a mooch around Preston, taken time to see the city too and gave some thoughtful comments about the process of Mayoral Devolution.

Luke recommends this article about the most critically-acclaimed game of 2025 (which he hasn’t played in full yet despite owning because he sleeps in his living room and Ed doesn’t leave him alone) has a genuinely outstanding backstory to it. It started as a personal project by an employee at Ubisoft (known for their extremely formulaic approach to game development). If you’re not going to play it, read about it.

Pic by Florian Olivo on Unsplash

Ella loved Mary’s latest installment of her ‘decentring the smartphone’ series which is all about the choice we have – and have always had – about the tech we use, and our collective cognitive dissonance about this. A taster: “Perhaps it’s unnecessary to decide which path you’ll choose, rather to notice that you can choose. To see how small, incremental decisions such as opening or closing an app shapes the texture of our days. Your phone isn’t your villain, neither is it your saviour, it’s your mirror. What you see in it depends on how you hold it.”

She also enjoyed this week’s If I Speak episode about politeness and how it can lead to the normalisation of life choices that might be better interrogated.

Natalie has been listening to Deep Water from the Observer, a podcast exploring the compelling world of free diving and the doping rumours that have rocked the elite level of this extreme sport.

She also enjoyed this read among the latest slew of essays on relationships/heteropessimism/Lily Allen (this one successfully manages to merge all three). It argues that lying to children about the problems of heterosexuality hurts all of us, pushing back against the long-held belief that mothers should always protect their children from their fathers’ bad behaviour (especially around gender inequality in the home!).

Zoë hosted an episode of Oh God, What Now? with Dr Olivia Brown from the University of Bath, who explains how a tiny number of far-right accounts weaponise tragedies like Southport and use AI and engagement tricks to warp Britain’s perception of what’s normal. This is especially interesting given our recent report on the fact that many of these accounts are fake.

She also wrote about the radicalisation of middle-aged men for The New World, a uniquely dangerous phenomenon that we tend to ignore.

Watched, read or listened to something you think we’d like to feature? Drop ella@thelead.uk a line and we will consider for inclusion. And feel free to share this post to a friend or family member who you think needs some reading or listening inspiration!

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