Francisco Garcia

When love is not enough: the mothers left grieving by Bri... The number of teenage boys killed on our streets has more than doubled in a decade. We spoke to some of the bereaved parents trying to make sense of it all

Here’s a new piece from me about the violence enveloping Woolwich, & the young lives it has claimed. It’s also about the mothers who did everything to keep their children safe, only for their efforts to prove unequal to the forces set against them

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

When love is not enough: counting the cost of Britain’s k... The number of teenage boys killed on our streets has more than doubled in a decade. We spoke to some of the grieving mothers trying to make sense of it all

Typically excellent article by @franciscogarciadf.bsky.social talking to the mothers of London’s teenage murder victims

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Thanks very much Max!

To be honest brother I’ve only ever logged in here about three times! Consider such a flagrant oversite rectified !

👋

Good day to be the man in the glass!

Some cool news. Am now senior writer at The Observer!

The glory and grime of boxing In The Last Bell: Life, Death and Boxing, Donald McRae deftly captures the sport’s ugliness and exhilaration.

Thanks to @franciscogarciadf.bsky.social for his really generous review of The Last Bell, and my boxing writing over the years, in the New Statesman. It meant a lot to read it....which can be done by just registering

www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

‘We thought we could change the world’: how an idealistic fight against miscarriages of justice turned sour When a no-nonsense lecturer set up a radical solution to help free the wrongfully convicted in the UK, he was hopeful he could change the justice system. But what started as a revolution ended in acri...

My new @theguardian.com longread is about the UK's university innocence projects- a radical, if imperfect, attempt at addressing miscarriages of justice. I am grateful to everyone who gave me their time this past year. It is an extraordinary story

www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ap...

Francisco Garcia | In Belgrade On 1 November 2024, a concrete canopy collapsed at the renovated railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city,...

‘100,000 people took to Slavija Square in Belgrade in the largest demonstration in Serbia for at least two decades. In January, students initiated a 24-hour blockade of the capital.’

Francisco Garcia on Belgrade’s Novi Sad disaster, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...

Man who lost bitcoin fortune in Welsh tip explores purchase of entire landfill James Howells lost case to force Newport city council to allow him to search for hard drive discarded by accident

If I ever lose millions in bitcoin in a Welsh dump, I like to believe I'd simply get over it and have a laugh

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Experiencing the sort of feverish deadline mania where I'm beginning to curse the fact I was ever taught to read and write

Excellent piece mate

The battle for the soul of Serbia The need for lithium is driving a global race for resources – and plans for a mine 120 miles from Belgrade have triggered social and political turmoil.

"During my reporting, the phrase neocolonial was never far from conversation." Great long read tracing the opposition to a huge lithium mine in Serbia. www.newstatesman.com/internationa.... | @franciscogarciadf.bsky.social

The battle for the soul of Serbia The need for lithium is driving a global race for resources – and plans for a mine 120 miles from Belgrade have triggered social and political turmoil.

The need for lithium is driving a global race for resources – and plans for a mine 120 miles from Belgrade have triggered social and political turmoil.

Read Francisco Garcia on the battle for the soul of Serbia:

The battle for the soul of Serbia The need for lithium is driving a global race for resources – and plans for a mine 120 miles from Belgrade have triggered social and political turmoil.

Good piece by @franciscogarciadf.bsky.social on geopolitics of lithium mining in Serbia. Resonates with Irish context. Ireland also been identified as a 'hot spot' for critical minerals, which has everything to do with its peripheral position within the EU.

www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

The battle for the soul of Serbia The need for lithium is driving a global race for resources – and plans for a mine 120 miles from Belgrade have triggered social and political turmoil.

For the past six months, I’ve been reporting on the highly controversial plan to open ‘Europe’s largest lithium mine’ in Serbia. You can read the resulting long read here if you’d like

www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

What happened to the Scots who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War? Documenting Scotland's doomed fighters

Glaswegians made up 12% of the Scottish volunteers who died in Spain.

In our weekend read, Francisco Garcia battles November slush to unpick the heroic and complicated legacies of four men who differed in temperament but were bonded by political belief - and imprisonment.

Very happy to have written this piece on a remarkable book coauthored by four very remarkable people

Blue plaque thinking: memorialisation on the move in the London scheme Decisions about who should be honoured are fraught with controversy — can 2025 better reflect the historic cultural richness of the capital?

Here’s a fun piece that I wrote for this weekend’s FT about the history and contested future of London’s Blue Plaques

www.ft.com/content/371f...

Last Days of Soho A dispatch from the naughty rhombus just below Oxford Street.

In third place, @franciscogarciadf.bsky.social spent months speaking to the declining band of residents in Soho.

www.the-fence.com/last-days-of...

Been a very productive and interesting year of work. Slowly finishing up for 2024, though excited to share some new projects and long form pieces in the NY. Cheers!

Last Days of Soho Soho is poised at a critical juncture. The issue lies in the rancorous disagreements between its various constituents about the kind of future that should be pursued in this square mile of prime real…

New longread on 'the future of Soho' and its dwindling residential community in the @thefence.bsky.social, which was an editor's pic in @longreads.com

www.the-fence.com/last-days-of...

From low-level drug dealer to human trafficker: are modern slavery laws catching the wrong people? The long read: When I heard that a boy from my primary school had been convicted of trafficking, I had to find out what had happened to make him fall so far

My April @theguardian.com longread which was shortlisted for best investigation at last months Anti-Slavery Awards in parliament

www.theguardian.com/law/ng-inter...

The puzzling afterlife of Britain’s last executioner What the enduring cult of Albert Pierrepoint says about the appeal of capital punishment in the UK

February cover on the contested legacy and perplexing cultural afterlife of Albert Pierrepoint, the UK's 'repentant hangman'

www.ft.com/content/754d...

He dug a 20-metre hole under his London townhouse. Who was he? The curious case of the Hackney Mole Man

May cover story on the sometimes poignant, always baffling saga of the Hackney Moleman

www.ft.com/content/fe13...

Why it took 25 years to solve the greatest prison break in British history The unlikely story of the trio behind Soviet agent George Blake’s infamous bolt from Wormwood Scrubs

Hello! Getting set up here and thought I'd share a few substantial pieces from this year. Here's my October 5th @financialtimes.com cover on the 'Blake Escape' and why it took 25 years for the British state to catch up with those responsible

www.ft.com/content/2c9e...