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The Year in Review: What was the biggest story of 2023?

Politics &
Economics

Presented in partnership with 

Big news stories tumbled after each other in 2023. In February, Nicola Sturgeon unexpectedly resigned as First Minister of Scotland leaving the SNP and the independence movement in turmoil. With the launch of ChatGPT artificial intelligence went mainstream. An investigation by the Sunday Times and Channel 4 accused comedian and internet commentator Russell Brand of serious sexual offences. Former president Donald Trump was charged with numerous crimes in American courts. The Ukrainian military launched a broad counter-offensive against Russia. And in Russia, mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an armed rebellion against Vladimir Putin.

Now, in the closing months of the year the world is shaken by events unfolding in Israel and Gaza. 

We were joined by Tortoise journalists and special guest ITV Political Editor Robert Peston, for a live recording of The News Meeting podcast to discuss the biggest stories of the year. Each guest pitched a story from the past 12 months that they think mattered most and at the end Tortoise editor James Harding decided the story of the year. 

Speaker

  • Robert Peston

    Political Editor at ITV, Presenter of Peston, and Co-Host of The Rest is Money podcast

  • Jess Winch

    News Editor at Tortoise  

  • Cat Neilan 

    Political Editor at Tortoise 

Chair

  • James Harding

    Founder and Editor of Tortoise

Speakers

Speaker

Robert Peston

Political Editor at ITV, Presenter of Peston, and Co-Host of The Rest is Money podcast

ITV's political editor, presenter of the politics show Peston, and co-presenter of The Rest is Money podcast. He has written four critically acclaimed non-fiction books, How Do We Fix This Mess?, Who Runs Britain?, Brown's Britain and WTF?. For a decade until the end of 2015, he was at the BBC, as economics editor and business editor, and in the 1990s he was at the Financial Times, as political editor, financial editor and head of investigations. At the BBC he played a prominent role in exposing the causes and consequences of the credit crunch, banking crisis and Great Recession. He has won more than 30 awards for his journalism, including Journalist of the Year and Scoop of the Year from the Royal Television Society. Alongside his journalism, he is the founder of the education charity, Speakers for Schools and vice president of Hospice UK. His crime fiction novels include The Whistleblower, The Crash and the forthcoming The Kill Switch.

Jess Winch

News Editor at Tortoise  

Cat Neilan 

Political Editor at Tortoise 

Chair

James Harding

Founder and Editor of Tortoise

Founder and Editor of Tortoise Media. James was Director of News and Current Affairs at the BBC from 2012-18. Prior to that he was Editor of The Times from 2007-2012, winning the Newspaper of the Year in two of the five years he edited the paper. He was previously The Times’ Business Editor, having joined from The Financial Times, where he worked as Washington Bureau Chief, Media Editor and China correspondent opening the paper’s bureau in Shanghai in 1996.