Julia Hartley-Brewer

Presenter, journalist, columnist.

Julia Hartley-Brewer is one of Britain’s most widely recognised conservative pundits. Since starting her career in journalism in the 1990s, she has been published in Evening Standard, The Guardian, Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator, among others. Today, she hosts her eponymous radio show on Talk.

Why did we invite her back?

Julia is an ideal TRIGGERnometry guest: totally unafraid to speak her mind. She came on the show four years ago to discuss COVID-mania and the divisive lockdowns, and we’ve been desperate to have her back since. Recently, she’s been fiercely outspoken about the horrific Southport attack and baffling government-media response, as well as the emerging details surrounding the grooming gangs scandal. We’d been meaning to cover both, and Julia was the ideal candidate.

So what did we talk about?

”Sometimes I wonder: are they mad or bad? Do they just not care about people’s lives? Are they so desperate to virtue signal, or do they genuinely believe that if only people didn’t say nasty things, we could have [avoided it]?”

To anyone following the cases, the details are sometimes too much to bear. How many people had to hold their noses and look away for these acts to go undetected, unnoticed? How many could have been spared if appropriate action had been taken sooner?

To Konstantin, it’s too hard to believe that those responsible were insincere in their motives. Save for the rare case of psychopaths, humans are inherently decent and presumably will do what they think is right. They couldn’t have known the extent of what was happening or was about to - the number of people who would have to have been complicit renders that too unlikely to consider. Julia isn’t so sure: