The Lead in 2025 – some of our favourite stories (part 1)
As the year draws to a close we bring together some stories you may have missed this year.
As we start winding down to the end of the year, we’re taking the opportunity to look back over everything we have covered in 2025. From culture wars to dodgy pubs, medical scandals to patriotic bots – here are the stories our editors have picked out as some their favourite by The Lead’s writers this year…
We start with heading out into our green and pleasant land, but not all is at is seems. Ella Glover picked out when Jon Moses delved into the great rural culture war.
The ‘rural culture war’ is a myth
We are in the midst of a great rural culture war – or so we’re told. The story is of a rural way of life under siege from urban progressives who don’t understand the countryside, and perhaps never will. With a Labour government now in power, such claims have grown ever more histrionic.
At The Lead we’re committed to getting beyond the Westminster bubble, and so Ed Walker has picked out when Hannah Sargeant reported from Scunthorpe as the fate of British Steel hung in the balance. It’s the people behind the story who are often forgotten as the headlines focus on tariffs, trade deals and bail outs.
And for those who are paying subscribers to The Lead, we had an exclusive full-length documentary video report from Hannah too.
Our award-winning journalism in the North of England has set the agenda nationally a number of times this year, including in Blackpool where we revealed the truth behind the ‘Reform Pub’ which began making the headlines. That is Luke Beardsworth’s pick for a read.
How we revealed the First Reform UK pub has ‘long history of supporting neo-Nazi music gigs’
We don’t normally write to you on a Thursday lunchtime but we wanted to share this story which we broke in our mid-week edition of The Blackpool Lead.
Throughout this year the backdrop of misinformation and disinformation has been a constant theme, Zoë Grünewald has selected the forensic work of Katherine Denkinson as she investigated how local Reform councillors are plugged into a murky online ecosystem, and why what looks like fringe Facebook activity actually matters for British democracy.
Bots, AI memes and Reform councillors: How foreign Facebook pages are hijacking UK patriotism
“Born and Bred in Britain. It’s in my DNA,” declares an image shared on the UK Glory Facebook page, featuring a white man sitting in front of the Union Flag. Clearly AI generated, the image has 295 likes and numerous positive comments from the group’s 90,…
We’ve also welcomed Kat onto The Lead in Conversation, where we go behind our stories and give you exclusive insight, to discuss her book INCEL and earlier this year to explore the Common Law Conspiracy which she investigated exclusively for us.
Natalie Morris highlights her recent investigation into the awful realities faced my sickle cell patients in UK hospitals. Lowlah was kicked out of UCLH and barred from further treatment all for asking a simple question about her pain relief. What happened to her isn’t an anomaly. The Sickle Cell Society told The Lead the story is indicative of the pervasive “racism and stigmatisation” faced by patients in the NHS. As one commenter said: “These stories aren’t exaggerations, they’re the day-to-day reality of a system that still isn’t built to treat this condition with the urgency it demands.”
“Playing Russian roulette with my life”: What really happens to sickle cell patients in hospital
It was the middle of the night, two days before Christmas, 2022. Outside, the temperature was below freezing. After enduring hours of agony, Lowlah Dawodu had finally been given a bed in a central London hospital. But when she questioned staff about the timings of her next round of painkillers, they called security.
Thanks for reading part one of our favourite stories of 2025 at The Lead. If you enjoyed it, share it with your friends, family and colleagues to help us reach more people with our independent journalism, always with a focus on people, policy and place.
For more of our top picks of the year, keep an eye out for our upcoming highlights podcast. National Editor Natalie Morris, Westminster Editor Zoë Grünewald and Editor of The Lead North Luke Beardsworth recorded a special edition podcast discussing their favourite stories of 2025, everything from the hidden racial disparity at the heart of the child poverty crisis to our suggestions for how Rachel Reeves should shape up the public purse.
🎁And if you love what we do at The Lead you can buy a gift subscription for Christmas to give the gift of The Lead to a friend, family member of colleague. There’s 20% off gift subscriptions for December and you can order right up to and including Christmas Day!