Benedict J Smith
Benedict J Smith covers the intersection of politics, money and housing for The Telegraph, focusing on how decisions from governments and local authorities affect household finances and property markets.
Housing and property markets
His core run of recent stories tracks the health of the housing market and the risks facing homeowners and buyers.
In pieces on a council IT failure that left hundreds of transactions in a commuter town on hold, he shows how administrative problems can put entire chains of home sales at risk and leave buyers exposed. He follows the consequences of sharp increases in home heating oil costs, using official data to show price spikes of more than 80pc and explaining how higher energy bills make some properties harder to sell. Case-led reporting on couples struggling to find buyers for flats in areas such as Croydon underscores how stagnant demand and cautious lenders translate into stalled moves for ordinary owners.
Smith also works with proprietary analysis to map structural shifts in the market, notably in a detailed examination of London’s flat sector. In that coverage he combines scene-setting – mist shrouding new-build towers – with data showing that nearly 40pc of flats built and bought in Wandsworth since 2010 were sold at a loss within five years, the highest proportion of any London borough.
The result is a picture of housing not as an abstract asset class but as a network of individual investments and political promises that can leave buyers with real losses when policies, costs and demand move against them.
Labour market and economic strain
Running alongside his housing coverage is a thread on jobs, business conditions and the wider labour market. In a widely cited article on why 2026 will be the year Britain’s jobs market collapses, he describes employers cutting vacancies as higher costs and tighter regulation weigh on hiring plans, warning of a shift from labour shortages to a squeeze on opportunities. His reporting on a projected shortage of 300,000 construction workers needed to meet Labour’s target of building 1.5 million homes by 2029 ties workforce gaps directly to housing policy, spelling out the trades that are missing and the practical barriers to delivering ambitious building programmes.
Across these pieces he links macro pressures on businesses to individual workers’ prospects, treating employment trends as another channel through which political choices reach households.
Political decisions and household finances
Smith’s political beat is defined less by Westminster manoeuvring and more by the financial impact of policy on voters. He has examined proposals such as Andy Burnham’s so‑called “death tax” in terms of how new levies threaten the savings and inheritance plans of millions of families, framing the debate around who pays and who benefits rather than party lines. In his coverage of Labour’s housing ambitions he shows how headline targets collide with shortages of skilled labour and constrained local planning systems, turning campaign promises into concrete bottlenecks.
Stories about surging energy costs, higher business rates and faltering regional housing markets build a consistent theme: political decisions on tax, regulation and spending are judged by their effect on bills, jobs and the value of people’s homes.
His professional background reinforces that focus on money and property, with current responsibilities as a money writer and personal finance journalist at The Telegraph and earlier roles on the title’s business desk. This experience gives his political reporting a financial lens, and he uses clear explanations and specific numerical examples to show how policies change incentives for owners, landlords, employers and workers.
International and US politics
Alongside domestic economics, Smith contributes to The Telegraph’s coverage of international conflict and US politics. Earlier reporting includes dispatches on Israeli strikes on fuel depots under the headline “Tehran is burning” and coverage of victims of an Air India disaster in difficult conditions, combining urgent news with stark description.
He has written about the unveiling of uniforms for the US Space Force, highlighting the way political communication borrows from and reacts to popular culture and controversial visual aesthetics.
As a Washington correspondent on The Telegraph’s “Iran: the Latest” podcast, he discusses issues such as fears that war with Iran could stretch into the next decade and Donald Trump’s effort to persuade Republicans that economic pain is a price worth paying to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. These contributions fit his broader pattern: attention to how high-level strategic choices, in this case on war and security, feed back into economic realities and political narratives.
4 more politics journalists.
Abbi Garton-Crosbie
Abbi Garton-Crosbie is a multimedia political reporter who treats independence as a live process shaped by Holyrood power struggles, party manoeuvres and grassroots pressure. She works at The National, a pro-independence newspaper, covering how political power is contested and exercised in contemporary Scotland, with a core focus on parties, parliament and the mechanics of constitutional change. She reports on parliamentary votes, government strategy around future independence referendums, and elections across Scotland in the wider context of devolution in Wales and Northern Ireland. Her work centres on party leadership, resignations and internal conflict, including long-form interviews with senior politicians and coverage of emerging and smaller parties. She examines far-right activity, protest politics and movement organisation, and runs policy-driven reporting on rent caps, AI data centres, health boards and public services, across written, video and podcast formats.
Abubakar Ahmadu Maishanu
Abubakar Ahmadu Maishanu is a politics reporter with Premium Times who treats politics as a system of rules, contests and consequences rather than personalities. He focuses on power struggles, security shocks and governance disputes shaping party competition in northern Nigeria, especially how violence, corruption investigations and economic strain intersect with political authority. He reports on Bauchi’s 2027 governorship race, APC primaries and PRP realignment, tracking defections, party constitutions and factional manoeuvring. His coverage of Jigawa and Yobe follows power-sharing fights, candidate substitutions and Tinubu reelection mobilisation efforts. He links banditry and local security crises in Kano and Zamfara to political structures, using precise locations and casualty figures. His investigative work on alleged shady dealings around the Dala Inland Dry Port and reporting on soaring cooking gas prices add a corruption and economic hardship lens.
Aisha Iqbal
Aisha Iqbal covers local and regional politics for the BBC, with a distinct focus on grassroots power and how local decisions shape trust, representation and public services. She reports on Bradford Council decisions, waste services, cultural funding, regeneration grants and the use of public money. She also covers grooming gangs, community safety, political trust, elections, Muslim voters, Gaza, ceasefire campaigns and the links between faith, foreign policy and representation. Her work includes culture and public figures when they intersect with civic identity, including a feature on David Hockney. She connects committee-room votes, neighbourhood disputes and national debates, showing who gains, who loses and how communities respond. She reports across broadcast and online platforms in a clear, explanatory style. Earlier, she covered politics, culture and consumer issues for regional newspapers.
Alessia Simona Maratta
Alessia Simona Maratta stands out for showing how political decisions, regulations and conflicts ripple through communities, pairing national and global stories with on-the-ground voices and clear policy explanations. She is a digital reporter, producer and editor with Global News’ network news desk, covering breaking news, crime, politics, public health, housing, labour, immigration, environment and climate, social issues and features. Her recent work spans politics, public health regulation, labour and technology, and human-interest features that ground complex issues in everyday experience. She reports on politics, policy and community impact, public health and social debates, and labour and regulation at the intersection of technology, globalization and worker rights. Alongside hard news, she produces features that use individual stories, straightforward narrative arcs and accessible explanations to connect history, science and policy to everyday life.