Julia Hartley-Brewer

Julia Hartley-Brewer is a talkRADIO presenter. Tune in to her show every weekday from 6.30am to 10am.

British pubs have been pushed to the brink

A long time ago, a seasoned old hack gave me some wise words of advice: never to trust anyone who did not know the Sunday pub opening hours. This was back in the days when the Nanny State got to decide when pubs could open on the Sabbath. This year, after thirteen long months of

Staycations are second best – why won’t we admit it?

The vagaries of the great British summer are uncertain enough without a deadly pandemic and lockdown thrown into the mix. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has revealed that, while there is still ‘a lot of uncertainty’ about booking holidays at home or abroad, he has already booked his own summer break in Cornwall. Frankly, if I

How to avoid a lockdown divorce

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, the coronavirus pandemic now provides us with the ideal conditions to test whether the opposite is equally true: does being cooped up together in a small space for a long period of time also do the same? I think we all know the answer to that

With Julia Hartley-Brewer

31 min listen

Julia Hartley-Brewer is a journalist and TalkRadio host. On the podcast, she talks to Benedict and Andy about Philip Schofield, British things, and why the Democrats just can’t get rid of Trump.

I’m no Katie Hopkins!

I’ve been accused of many things since I ventured on to Twitter. Appearing on shows like Question Time and Have I Got News For You, you learn to expect a certain amount of criticism and name-calling. For a woman in the public eye it goes with the territory. According to the good folk of Twitter

Cameron’s impossible dilemma

If you spot the Prime Minister squirming and wriggling on the Syrian refugee issue, there’s a very simple explanation. The Prime Minister is in a very tight spot, caught between a rock and a hard place. And it is clear that he hasn’t yet decided the best way to extricate himself. After winning an outright

Does Jamelia not know the first rule of Fat Club?

The first rule of Fat Club is: don’t talk about Fat Club unless you are yourself ‘big and beautiful’, or what most of us would call ‘grossly overweight’. Or just plain ‘fat’. Otherwise it’s as much of a no-go zone as the salad bar at a Weight Watchers’ meeting. So it didn’t come as much

It’s time for John Bercow to hang up his gown

There was a time when both MPs and viewers of Prime Minister’s Question Time would welcome an interjection from the Commons Speaker. Indeed, there was a time when the Speaker commanded the respect not just of the entire House but the whole nation. But, after almost six years of John Bercow in the chair, that feels