Isabel Oakeshott

On July 22 2019 The Guardian newspaper was forced to retract claims implying that Oakeshott had obtained confidential files by sleeping with Nigel Farage and Aaron Banks. The text of an article by John Crace included the statement that Oakeshott only got confidential emails if Farage and Banks "slips it to her". Following the threat of legal action by Oakeshott, the text was amended to: "leave it conveniently tucked under her pillow". This second revision was then removed, with the final version stating: "if he or Arron Banks leave it conveniently to one side for her”. Oakeshott stated: “It gives me great pleasure to teach ⁦John Crace⁩ and the ⁦Guardian a little lesson about casually slurring women whose politics they dislike.”. It was also reported that the newspaper paid her a five figure sum in compensation.

She co-authored with Ashcroft a book on the state of the British Armed Forces, White Flag? in 2018.

Oakeshott was married to Nigel Rosser. They have three children. In 2018, she separated from her husband and began a relationship with businessman and Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice.

Between February 2016 and early 2017, Oakeshott was the Daily Mail' s political editor-at-large. In 2019, she wrote a series of articles for The Mail on Sunday based on leaked diplomatic memos written by the British Ambassador to the United States Sir Kim Darroch, where he criticised the Trump administration. The leak led to his resignation.

The Bad Boys of Brexit is an inside account of the Leave.EU campaign during the run-up to the Brexit referendum, which she had ghostwritten for UKIP donor and Leave.EU funder Arron Banks. Oakeshott is a supporter of Brexit. She was in possession of details about Russia's cultivation and handling of Banks, that he was in regular contact with Russian officials from 2015 to 2017, but publicly downplayed Russian involvement with him.

In 2013, while at The Sunday Times, she persuaded Vicky Pryce to implicate her estranged husband, former Liberal Democrat MP and Cabinet minister Chris Huhne, in perverting the course of justice, leading to the case R v Huhne, and to both Pryce and Huhne being convicted and imprisoned.

Call Me Dave, co-authored with Michael Ashcroft, is an unauthorised biography of former British prime minister David Cameron. One of the details in the book – that Cameron, during his university days, allegedly performed a sex act involving a dead pig – caused a particular stir upon publication. However, the unsubstantiated story was dependent on hearsay and Oakeshott subsequently conceded her source could have been "deranged".

After three years, Oakeshott moved to The Sunday Times in 2006 as deputy political editor, becoming political editor in 2010, and remained until 2014. Oakeshott was awarded the title "Political Journalist of the Year" at the 2011 British Press Awards.

Oakeshott was born in Westminster, London. She attended Gordonstoun School in Moray, Scotland, before graduating in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Bristol.

Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott (born 12 June 1974) is a British political journalist and broadcaster. She was the political editor of The Sunday Times and is the co-author, with Michael Ashcroft, of an unauthorised biography of former British prime minister David Cameron, Call Me Dave, and of various other non-fiction titles, including White Flag?, an examination of the UK's defence capability, also written with Lord Ashcroft; Farmageddon, co-authored with Philip Lymbery.