About us

Not quite straight out of the Hitchhiker's Guide - but in the same vein. A voice in your ear, making sense of the nonsense. Talking your language. Unspinning the spin.

Babelfish is new media, here to intervene. We're a pop-up with purpose; bearing facts, tongue in cheek, for fun, and with a clear point of view. We cover the stories that matter to Britain: energy, climate, nature, food, transport, culture, sport and politics. The things that shape how we live, who holds power over them, and what becomes possible when that power is held to account.

We're not neutral. We're fair. There's a difference.

Why we exist

Britain's media is broken. Most of it is foreign-owned, much of it actively hostile to the public interest, and almost all of it is pulling in the same direction: amplifying division, manufacturing outrage, and keeping the real questions off the front page. Questions about energy bills, about poverty, about who is picking whose pocket and why nobody in power seems to want to stop them.

We are always fighting the tide of that bias. A right-wing press that declared chaos on day two of a new government. Media barons using their platforms as loudspeakers for the politics of distraction. The result is a country that is being told a story about itself that simply isn't true, and fed a diet of noise where there should be signal.

Babelfish exists to counter that. To set the record straight on what Britain really thinks, what is actually happening, and what could be different if the people with the levers of power chose to use them.

What we cover:

Energy sits at the heart of everything we do. Clean homegrown electricity is among the cheapest power ever generated - yet British families are not feeling any of it. Bills remain artificially high because a broken market ties the price of wind and sun to the global price of gas. That single absurdity costs Britain billions every year, drives up inflation, pushes up interest rates and squeezes household budgets. It is not an accident of nature. It is a political choice. And it can be unmade.

Climate is the biggest story on earth. The science is settled. The public knows it. What stands between us and a liveable future is not technology, not public will, and not the cost. It is the organised, well-funded campaign of delay run by fossil fuel interests and the politicians who collude with them. The future is not fixed. We're here to fight for the good one.

Nature tells the same story in a different register. Britain is now one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, not by accident, but by political choice. Given half a chance, nature comes back. Rewilded land blooms. Rivers fill with life. The skies can fill again. We just have to choose it.

Food is a political story, a climate story, a health story and a justice story - all on the same plate. Britain's food system was designed for profit and scale, not for people or planet. The solutions don't require sacrifice. They require change. And good food should never be a luxury.

Transport is changing, and for once, the change is genuinely good news. Electric vehicles are not a compromise. They are a superior product. The electric car on your driveway is not just transport, it is a battery that can cut your energy bills. The road ahead is cleaner, cheaper and better.

Culture is how communities make sense of themselves. In Britain's music venues, local theatres and independent cinemas you find a country that is tolerant, creative and stubbornly hopeful; not the broken, fearful nation the right-wing press keeps trying to sell you. Fix the fundamentals and culture thrives. Leave them broken and we hand the national story to people with nothing to say.

Sport is where Britain shows its true colours. Not the culture wars, not the flag-waving, but a Sunday morning on a freezing municipal pitch, a youth club five-a-side, a community running group in a town the government forgot. Grassroots sport is the connective tissue of communities. Rising bills, poverty and inequality are making it a luxury. It shouldn't be.

Politics should be the art of making life better. The right has no answers to the cost of living, the energy crisis or the hollowing out of public services. What it has is a strategy: keep people angry and hope no one notices who's picking their pocket. The country deserves better. We're here to demand it.

Every edition takes a theme, goes deep, and comes out the other side with something useful - a policy argument, a piece of culture, a conversation starter, or just a reason to feel less alone in thinking something has gone badly wrong and could be fixed.

If you'd like to work with us, drop us an email at hello@babelfish.news.