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Hello and welcome to Wimber Balls, where I Katie Balls speak to today as Trailblazers.

My guest today grew up in Scotland and became a reporter for a local newspaper, where she worked her way up the ranks through evening and national newspapers.

She was appointed as the first ever female political editor of a news UK title in 2010, where at the

Sunday Times, she became known for exposing some of the biggest political stories of the past

decade, from Chris Houn's speeding scandal to this year's story on the lockdown files, and many

more in between. She has offered several books, often collaborating with Michael Ashcroft,

and now broadcast for Talk TV. My guest today is

Isabel Oakshop. Thank you. I'm honoured to be a woman with balls. Now we're in the

spectator office and on this podcast we always kickstart with the same question. I mentioned the

introduction you went to school in Scotland, though obviously don't have the accent like me who

also grew up in Scotland. Was yours a happy childhood?

It was definitely a happy childhood.

It was pretty unusual childhood, actually.

I grew up semi in the middle of nowhere in a pretty freezing farmhouse

with no central heating, little hot water, not much by way of carpets and decorations. So creature comforts

weren't really a thing in our household. We also didn't have a television. This is a point

of principle for my parents who felt that we should be doing more productive things and

watching TV. And that actually was quite problematic at the beginning of my career when I was

...