Jackie Long , Social Affairs Editor and Presenter

Jan Halper-Hayes, former vice-president of Republicans Overseas.

He’s been making music seriously for barely two years …yet 21 year old Yxng Bane from East London has already been nominated for a prestigious MOBO award, and his music videos regularly gain tens of millions of views.

It’s an astonishing statistic . A child was referred to children’s services in England and Wales every 49 seconds last year. The Local Government Association is warning that councils need more resources to help social workers keep children safe, claiming services  face a £2bn funding gap by 2020. The Department for Education said it was investing…

Schools in England are raising as much as £146 million a year in voluntary donations, including from parents, according to research carried out by this programme. Headteachers say the money is increasingly being spent on basic essentials, as schools struggle with budget cuts. Our estimates, based on a sample covering more than a quarter of…

Beyond of course, the enormous personal tragedies of the Grenfell fire, one of its wider legacies has been to shine an unforgiving light on Britain’s social housing. The former Home Secretary Alan Johnson grew up in the slums of North Kensington, eventually bulldozed to make way for Grenfell.  For his generation, a council home was…

All this week we’ve been looking at the subject of homelessness and the response has been overwhelming – especially to our film about Andy Hutchins, a former heroin addict who lived on the streets for years and who says his life has been saved by his love for his dog Bailey. It’s a piece that’s…

It is six months since the Grenfell Tower tragedy and hundreds of children from the area are still struggling to get back to normal. One local youth project lost two of its members in the devastating blaze – and their friends are learning to cope with the grief and trauma. Our Social Affairs Editor Jackie…

A man who was accused of rape and faced at least 10 years in jail won’t now face trial after the case dramatically collapsed in court. The case against Liam Allan, who’s 22, was dropped after it emerged that police had withheld around 40,000 messages from the complainant. The judge called for an investigation “at…

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has been out launching a new rough sleeping campaign, in conjunction with 18 different charities.

Survivor Antonio Roncolato and bereaved relative Karim Mussilhy discuss the Grenfell tragedy six months on.

Six months to the day from the Grenfell Tower fire, survivors and the 71 victims have been remembered at a memorial service in St Paul’s Cathedral. It was a moment to recall the community spirit that was so evident as ordinary Londoners stepped in to help the survivors, but also to acknowledge their deep and…

We’re joined by Vanellope’s parents Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins from their home in Nottinghamshire.

The Luxembourg MEP and former European Commissioner Viviane Reding claimed in the European parliament today that Brexit really means – ‘spinning out of control instead of taking back control.’

Survivors and bereaved relatives of the Grenfell tower fire must be at the heart of a public inquiry into the disaster, the judge overseeing it was told today. As the hearing into how it will be conducted took place in central London, lawyers representing those affected by the fire said their voices must be heard.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable and Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng, who’s parliamentary private secretary to the Chancellor, discuss Brexit.