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This is where I discuss the way we live in the UK and the many ways in which that is constantly changing
12:20 UK time, Friday, 31 August 2012
Here's my report about the 2,000 students who potentially face deportation after a London university had its licence to teach and recruit overseas students revoked.
London Metropolitan University has had its right to sponsor students from outside the EU revoked, and will no longer be allowed to authorise visas.
13:46 UK time, Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Here's my report on new research that suggests young people who smoke cannabis run the risk of a significant and irreversible reduction in their IQ. The findings come from a study of about 1,000 people in New Zealand.
Although cannabis is widely used in the UK, possession can lead to up to five years in jail. The research has been seized on by both sides of the debate over whether to legalise cannabis.
10:31 UK time, Friday, 24 August 2012
In the sultry Athenian air, this feels like a place holding its breath.
Greeks have always scrawled on walls. But after sunset this troubled summer, masked graffiti agitators have roamed the capital's streets applying their urgent exhortations to every flat surface they can find.
17:30 UK time, Sunday, 12 August 2012
Ask foreigners to describe Britain and they will often reflect on a people obsessed with their past and resigned to their fate. We have a reputation for reserved introspection.
The Diamond Jubilee presented a familiar British face to a watching world - street parties and formal ceremonial held, as might be seen as traditional, in the rain.
08:32 UK time, Tuesday, 7 August 2012
A year ago, the prime minister despaired at the country's "moral collapse", as flames lit up the night sky amid riots in north and east London.
Twelve months on, David Cameron talks of an inspirational country that "makes people feel proud to be British", as the Olympic flame burns bright just a few miles from where the disturbances began.
11:05 UK time, Friday, 3 August 2012
The empty seats scandal at these Olympics refuses to go away. The problem is not simply that each vacant place is a kick in the teeth to the millions of sports fans who have tried desperately to get hold of tickets.
The blocks of empty seating are also a reminder of the privileges available for the rich and powerful at these Games. It looks dreadful because each unused spot emphasises the special treatment afforded to officials and their business partners who then don't turn up.
11:55 UK time, Thursday, 2 August 2012
New figures reveal that the NHS in England spent more than £270m on antidepressants last year - a massive 23% increase on 2010. The health service spent almost £1m a week more on the drugs than the year before.
Antidepressant use has been growing rapidly for decades. In 1991, English pharmacies handed over nine million items. In 2001, it was 24.3 million. Now the number has grown to 46.7 million prescriptions issued - a 9.1% rise on the previous year.
08:56 UK time, Tuesday, 31 July 2012
If there were medals for hamburger joints, then one of the four (count them) McDonald's in the Olympic Park in London would take gold in the super-size division.
It is vast, a symbol of the global corporatism that feeds these Games - quite literally, in the case of the hundreds I joined in a queue for branded beef and buns.
10:37 UK time, Saturday, 28 July 2012
The job was to welcome the world to London for the Olympics, to show our guests around our gaff and introduce ourselves.
So the question now is less about how Britain felt about it all, but what the visitors in the spare room will say.
09:16 UK time, Friday, 27 July 2012
Only rarely do countries get the opportunity to describe themselves to a watching world. Today's Olympic opening ceremony is a defining moment for this country - literally.
But trying to pin down national identity is always a difficult and dangerous occupation - even more so if your chosen medium involves marshalling 1,000 people, nine geese and 70 sheep on a sports field.
14:00 UK time, Wednesday, 25 July 2012
As much of Britain basks in longed-for sunshine one senses that, despite all the economic gloom, our national spirits have been lifted. We instinctively believe that warm weather makes us happier. But is it true?
Yesterday's well-being statistics suggested the opposite. The happiest region of the whole UK is the most northerly - Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides. Some islands see only around 1,000 hours of sunshine a year compared to a UK average of 1,340 hours.
15:50 UK time, Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Mark added analysis to:
There is a risk of jumping to conclusions with today's well-being figures. We know that people in rented accommodation report significantly lower levels of life satisfaction than home-owners. But that doesn't mean renting is bad for your happiness.
All we can say is that there may be something about the kind of people who rent their homes that makes it more likely they will have lower levels of well-being. Home-owners are generally financially better off than people who rent and they are more likely to be in a stable relationship - both factors that are also associated with higher levels of life satisfaction.
15:28 UK time, Tuesday, 24 July 2012
I need more time to digest the new statistics on national well-being, but one finding got me sitting bolt upright in my chair today.
Among the four questions asked as part of the survey is "Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?" Respondents must pick a score between 0 and 10 with any score below three being regarded as indicative of a pretty chilled-out individual.
12:44 UK time, Thursday, 19 July 2012
Homicide down. Violence down. Anti-social behaviour down. It really does begin to look as though the country is behaving better.
In Scotland recorded crime is at its lowest level for 37 years.
15:43 UK time, Wednesday, 18 July 2012
How can employment appear to be going up and unemployment down when the economy is so flat?
Always one to revel in a statistical mystery, I have dived into today's employment data to see if I can solve the riddle.
13:31 UK time, Monday, 16 July 2012
We learn today that there are almost half a million more people living in England and Wales than official estimates had suggested. We are pretty good at counting babies and corpses, so we must have been under-counting net migration during the past decade.
It is not a wild underestimate - less than 1% of the total population. But the 480,000 individuals of whom the authorities were unaware will fuel arguments about immigration and how we best deal with an ageing population.
13:15 UK time, Monday, 16 July 2012
Mark added analysis to:
There are almost half a million more people living in England and Wales than official estimates suggested. The most likely reason for that under-counting is inaccurate migration data.
It is notable that the number of people in their 20s has risen from 6.6m to 7.6m - the additional one million people are most likely to be migrant workers.
11:58 UK time, Friday, 13 July 2012
Sometimes you ask one question and discover a surprising answer to another. I wondered how many of England's youth clubs had closed down after council cuts. But what became clear as I researched the issue was how, all over the country, volunteers and communities were managing to keep services open.
You can try it yourself. Do a simple internet search on "youth club closures" and read the local online newspaper stories.
10:35 UK time, Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Discussion about poverty in Britain quickly gets snagged on the question of whether you can be poor if you have a plasma TV.
But if, instead of thinking about the breadline, we consider what level of income is needed for an acceptable standard of living, the debate changes.
13:31 UK time, Thursday, 5 July 2012
It is boom time for the mobility scooter industry.
The new millennium dawned to the electrical hum of around 70,000 powered wheelchair and scooter users in Britain. Today there are five times as many, with warnings of "mo-sco" gridlock in some of our more populous retirement villages.
Mark joined his local paper after leaving school, inspired to become a journalist by playing Waddington's Scoop aged 13.
He has won numerous awards for his reporting. Most recently, his writing won a Royal Statistical Society award for excellence and was a finalist in the online journalism awards in San Francisco.
His ambition is to try to chronicle the story of changing Britain, and for Arsenal to win some silverware.
Before becoming BBC News home editor in 2004, Mark was home and social affairs editor at Channel Four News and political editor at Five News.
He is married with four children.
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