Julia Hartley-Brewer

Early life and education

Julia Hartley-Brewer is the daughter of Michael John Hartley-Brewer, who unsuccessfully stood as the Labour Party's candidate in Selly Oak in the 1970 general election as well as in Dudley West in the 1979 general election, and general practitioner Valerie Forbes Hartley-Brewer. Her parents divorced, and her mother trained as a GP while bringing up two children.

Hartley-Brewer was educated at the Oldfield Girls' Comprehensive School in Bath. Later, Hartley-Brewer studied at Woodhouse Sixth Form College in Finchley, North London. She gained a degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1988.

She later studied for a diploma in journalism at Cardiff University's School of Journalism.

Career

Hartley-Brewer began her career in journalism at the East London Advertiser in Bethnal Green, east London. 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 (politics). 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 was an LBC presenter from February 2011, until she left in December 2014 to be replaced by Shelagh Fogarty.

Hartley-Brewer broadcast on Talkradio, a radio station owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. She presented the mid-morning weekday show from March 2016 until 15 January 2018, when she moved to host the weekday breakfast show from 6.30am to 10am.

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. The show became a daily simulcast as part of the daily schedule of TalkTV that began broadcasting in April 2022.

She has written opinion articles and columns for publications such as The Daily Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, and The Spectator about politics and current affairs.

Public appearances

She has appeared as a panellist on the comedy quiz show Have I Got News for You ten 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, BBC One's The One Show, This Morning on ITV, BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 4's Today and PM programmes.

She was a contestant on Pointless Celebrities in October 2014, winning the prize for her chosen charity.

Views and incidents

Hartley-Brewer was a long-standing supporter of Brexit during the campaign in 2016. On 29 March 2019, Hartley-Brewer spoke at the Leave Means Leave rally in Parliament Square, London.

She is an atheist. In 2010, she described herself as a "staunch and long-standing republican". She is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.

In 2015, after Pope Francis issued the encyclical Laudato Si', calling for 'swift and unified global action' on environmental degradation and global warming, Hartley-Brewer wrote an article for The Daily Telegraph stating: "What the head of an anti-science body like the Catholic Church says about climate change is about as relevant as Kim Kardashian on the eurozone."

In June 2016, Hartley-Brewer said Owen Jones had "more in common with ISIS than he thinks" on Sky News after Jones walked out of an interview on the news channel following host Mark Longhurst's refusal to refer to the Orlando nightclub shooting as an assault on LGBT people. Hartley-Brewer also said, "neither the Sky presenter Mark Longhurst nor I said anything that was offensive, wrong or bigoted in any way" and that she would not apologise to Jones. By lunchtime of the following day of the interview and the comments by Hartley-Brewer, Ofcom had received nearly 60 complaints about the programme from viewers who said both Hartley-Brewer and Longhurst were dismissive of Jones's argument that the attack was one on the LGBT community.

In October 2017, Hartley-Brewer alleged that the then Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, had repeatedly touched her knee throughout a dinner in 2002; the allegation contributed to his eventual resignation.

At the Oxford University PPE Society on 20 November 2018, Hartley-Brewer gave a talk on "Political Correctness and Free Speech", in which she argued that political correctness damaged the ability to freely express political views.

Hartley-Brewer has been referred to as "right-wing" by Nick Duffy writing for PinkNews. Duffy reported that on 30 November 2018 Hartley-Brewer threatened to remove a guest from the Talkradio studio where she works as a presenter during a discussion on trans issues because the guest used the term "cis." A later article in 2021 for PinkNews by Lily Wakefield referred to Hartley-Brewer as having "openly voiced her anti-trans views" in reference to the article by Duffy.

On 12 August 2018, she sent a tweet containing a photo of the aftermath of the 1998 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 and journalist David Blevins criticised the use of the photo. She defended her tweet as satire.

The Royal College of General Practitioners invited her to speak in an "NHS Question Time" panel debate at its annual conference in 2019 but withdrew the invitation after over 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 among patients. One of such views involved a deleted Tweet from 2016, in which Hartley-Brewer said "Powell wasn't a racist". On Enoch Powell, she said "I'm not defending Powell, I just don't see anything in the Rivers speech that he got wrong."

In October 2019, Jolyon Maugham accused Hartley-Brewer of revealing his home address at a time when he was receiving death threats. Hartley-Brewer defended herself by saying Maugham's address was already easily available online and that he had previously revealed it himself in published interviews.

In April 2021, Ofcom received over 200 complaints accusing Hartley-Brewer of trivialising racism following a TV appearance on This Morning in which Hartley-Brewer commented on a family portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip taken in 2018, posing with seven of their great-grandchildren, saying: "I wonder if Meghan has managed to take offence to this photograph that doesn't include her son. Well she probably thinks it's a racist photograph, taken before her son was even conceived". (Prince Archie, the son of Meghan and Prince Harry, was born in 2019).

In December 2022, Hartley-Brewer referred to environmental activist Greta Thunberg's autism in a tweet, following Thunberg's criticism of internet personality Andrew Tate. The tweet was posted again without mentioning autism. Hartley-Brewer also stated in both the original and re-posted tweet that she would "choose Andrew Tate's life every single time" over Thunberg's. This was mocked online when, a day after the tweet, Tate was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organised crime group.

On 4 January 2024, during an interview with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician, Hartley was accused of shouting over the top of her guest and repeatedly interrupting Barghouti. She also stated, "Maybe you're not used to women talking, I don't know, but I'd like to finish the sentence!" In response, Ofcom received 17,366 complaints about Hartley's conduct during her show, making it the most complained-about United Kingdom programme in 2024.

On 14 April 2024, in the wake of the 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings in Sydney, Australia, before the suspect had been identified, Hartley-Brewer tweeted "Another day. Another terror attack by another Islamic terrorist". The press later condemned this and other misinformation that had been spread about the attacker, and she deleted her tweet after it had been viewed more than nine million times. The perpetrator, Joel Cauchi, was not Muslim.

Hartley-Brewer is on the advisory council of the Free Speech Union.

Personal life

Hartley-Brewer married Rob Walton in 2006. They have one daughter.

References

References

1. (27 December 2020). "Julia Hartley-Brewer on Twitter: "This #FBPE Remoaner "citizen of the world" says he "hopes" my 76yr old mum is "dead already". My mum put herself through medical school, while divorced with 2 young kids. & spent 40 years working as an NHS GP. She is very much alive and well. Oh, and she voted for Brexit.".
2. "GMC - Doctor: Valerie Forbes Hartley-Brewer".
3. (12 December 2020). "I happen to have 3 grade A A-levels (from non-selective state schools, before you ask), a 2:1 from Oxford University".
4. "Women's Networking Dinner June 2014". Magdalen College Oxford.
5. (2011). "Politics Panel". Floreat Magdalena: The Magazine for Magdalen Members.
6. "Julia Hartley-Brewer". JLA.
7. [https://www.theguardian.com/profile/juliahartleybrewer Julia Hartley-Brewer contributor page], ''The Guardian'' website
8. (11 July 2007). "The Worst Job In British Politics? The Leader of the Opposition". BBC.
9. Plunkett, John. (22 December 2014). "LBC signs up Shelagh Fogarty to present weekday afternoon news show". The Guardian.
10. Platt, Gareth. (12 January 2018). "Welcome Holmes: Eamonn Holmes joins all-new talkRADIO".
11. Oppenheim, Maya. (14 June 2016). "Julia Hartley-Brewer refuses to apologise to Owen Jones and compares him to Isis". The Independent.
12. Brown, Nancy. (5 October 2021). "Julia Hartley-Brewer: This Morning star's career and controversies".
13. (22 June 2016). "You don't need to trust politicians to vote for Brexit. Just trust yourself". The Daily Telegraph.
14. (29 March 2019). "Thousands of pro-Brexit protesters descend on Parliament". Evening Standard.
15. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yrs0l BBC Radio 4: ''Any Questions''] 28 July 2017.
16. "Honorary Associates". National Secular Society.
17. Brewer, Julia Hartley. (2015-06-18). "If we need the Pope to teach us about science, then God help us all".
18. (2 November 2017). "Newspaper headlines: Fallon 'first scalp' of Commons scandal".
19. (4 November 2017). "Revealed: why Michael Fallon was forced to quit as defence secretary". The Guardian.
20. "Julia Hartley-Brewer: Political Correctness and Free Speech".
21. Duffy, Nick. (3 December 2018). "Julia Hartley-Brewer bans the word 'cis' on TalkRadio show". [[PinkNews]].
22. Wakefield, Lily. (30 September 2021). "Tories swiftly condemned for hosting anti-trans pressure group LGB Alliance at party conference". PinkNews.
23. Halliday, Gillian. (14 August 2018). "Omagh bomb victim's dad hits out at broadcaster Hartley-Brewer's 'insensitive' tweet". Belfast Telegraph.
24. (14 August 2018). "Indefensible: Omagh bomb Corbyn joke tweet sparks backlash". Belfast Telegraph.
25. (31 May 2019). "RCGP drops Julia Hartley-Brewer from annual conference programme". GP Online.
26. (1 June 2019). "Journalist 'no-platformed' by GPs over Enoch Powell tweet". BBC News.
27. Bond, Kimberley. (10 October 2019). "Julia Hartley-Brewer to feature on Question Time despite boycott". [[Radio Times]].
28. (22 April 2021). "This Morning Guest Julia Hartley-Brewer's Meghan Markle Comments Spark Ofcom Complaints".
29. (29 December 2022). "Julia Hartley-Brewer accused of using 'autistic' as insult in Greta Thunberg attack".
30. "Julia Hartley-Brewer asked if she'd still choose Andrew Tate's life over Greta Thunberg's".
31. (30 December 2022). "Julia Harley-Brewer taunted for poorly aged tweet about Andrew Tate".
32. (13 April 2023). "Who is Andrew Tate and why was he arrested?".
33. Archer, Katie. (10 January 2024). "Julia Hartley-Brewer sparks 15,000 complaints over TalkTV interview".
34. Butt, Maria. (26 December 2024). "Ofcom reveals 2024's most complained about TV controversies".
35. (15 April 2024). "Benjamin Cohen was falsely accused of the Bondi Junction stabbings. Here's how the lie spread around the world".
36. Molloy, Shannon. (15 April 2024). "The social media figures who spread Westfield Bondi massacre misinformation".
37. Bogle, Ariel. (14 April 2024). "False claims started spreading about the Bondi Junction stabbing attack as soon as it happened".
38. (16 February 2023). "About Us".
39. Brown, Nancy. (5 October 2021). "Julia Hartley-Brewer: This Morning star's career and controversies". Entertainment Daily.