Julia Hartley-Brewer is an English broadcaster and newspaper columnist. She presented the weekday radio show from 10 am to 1 pm on Talkradio from March 2016 to January 2018, and from 6:30 to 10am since 15 January.
Hartley-Brewer began her career in journalism at the East London Advertiser in Bethnal Green. Later she was employed as a news reporter and political correspondent for the London Evening Standard and then joined The Guardian, staying at the latter until September 2000. She then moved to the Sunday Express as political correspondent, then political editor from 2001 until 2007 and then assistant editor, with a byline on a weekly opinion column. She left the Sunday Express in February 2011. In 2006, she presented and narrated two political documentaries for the television channels BBC Two and BBC Four about the history of British Deputy Prime Ministers, called Every Prime Minister Needs a Willie, and the history of the Leader of the Opposition in The Worst Job in Politics. She has appeared as a panellist on the comedy quiz show Have I Got News for You seven times as well as being a regular panellist on BBC One's Question Time and Radio 4's Any Questions. She is a regular pundit and commentator on TV and radio, including for Sky News, the BBC News Channel, BBC One's The One Show, ITV's Tonight show, Lorraine on ITV, This Morning on ITV, The Agenda on ITV, Sunday Politics on BBC1, BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 4's Today and PM programmes. She appeared as a contestant on Pointless Celebrities in October 2014, winning the prize for her chosen charity, the Miscarriage Association. She was an LBC presenter from February 2011, until she left in December 2014 to be replaced by Shelagh Fogarty. Hartley-Brewer now broadcasts on Talkradio, a talk radio station launched on 21 March 2016. On 12 January 2018, Talkradio announced that Hartley-Brewer would be moving from the mid-morning slot to the 6.30 am breakfast show. In September 2019, The Julia Hartley-Brewer Show was launched on YouTube; under the Talkradio brand, each programme is a one-to-one interview with a guest. In 2016, she supported Britain leaving the European Union during the EU referendum of that year. In early October 2017, her allegations against the then Defence SecretarySir Michael Fallon, recounting an incident 15 years earlier when he repeatedly touched her knee throughout a dinner in 2002, may have contributed to his eventual resignation. On 12 August 2018 she sent a tweet containing a photo of the aftermath of the Omagh bombing with text saying that Jeremy Corbyn had paid tribute to the victims of the bombing, "including the Real IRA bombers who may have snagged a nail while planting the explosives". The tweet was criticised as insensitive by Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed by the bomb. He said that while he wouldn't have "much faith" in Corbyn, her tweet was "poorly timed". Writer Lisa McGee criticised the use of the photo of the aftermath. Hartley-Brewer was also criticised by journalist David Blevins. She defended her tweet as satire. The 20th anniversary of the bombing was on 15 August 2018. On 29 March 2019, Hartley-Brewer spoke at the Leave Means Leave rally in Parliament Square, London. The Royal College of General Practitioners invited her to speak in an "NHS Question Time" panel debate at their annual conference in 2019 but withdrew the invitation after 700 GPs signed a petition complaining that her views were not conducive to the work they were doing to promote inclusivity within the profession and amongst patients.
Personal life
Hartley-Brewer is married with one daughter, born in 2006. She has declared that she is irreligious. In 2010, she described herself as a "staunch and long-standing republican". She is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.
