Paul Brand: ITV News UK Editor, Partygate Scoops and Tonight Presenter

Paul Brand is the UK Editor of ITV News, a role he has held since 2021, and the presenter of ITV’s current affairs programme Tonight. He is best known to the public for one story above all others: Partygate, the series of scoops in 2021 that exposed lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street and helped bring down a prime minister. But Partygate, dramatic as it was, is only one part of a career built on investigations that have repeatedly changed policy — on care homes, on conversion therapy, and on assisted dying.

Competitor pages often treat Brand as a single-story journalist, or they make his family life the angle. Neither does him justice. His career is better understood as a steady climb through ITV’s regional and national newsrooms, followed by a series of investigations where documents, video and patient reporting did the work that shouting never could.

Quick Bio

Wales, Oxford and the regional newsrooms

Brand has said he wanted to be a journalist from about the age of seventeen or eighteen, after watching the Iraq war play out on television and becoming fascinated by politics — not by becoming a politician, but by reporting on politics. He studied politics at the University of Oxford, and then trained as a journalist at City, University of London, on a bursary from ITV.

He began his career as a production journalist at ITV Wales, then worked as a reporter and political correspondent for ITV Yorkshire and ITV Tyne Tees & Border. He went on to cover politics for Good Morning Britain, and joined the network ITV News team in 2016 as a political correspondent. During the 2016 EU membership referendum, he was the first reporter to call the defining result in Sunderland as Leave — an early sign of the live-reporting judgement that would later define his national career.

That regional route matters. Brand did not arrive at Westminster as a London insider; he arrived as a reporter who had covered politics from Cardiff, Leeds and Newcastle, and who understood how national decisions land outside the capital. It is a perspective that still shapes his work as UK Editor, a role that is explicitly about national coverage, not only Westminster coverage.

Partygate: the scoops that defined a scandal

In 2021, the year he became UK Editor, Brand and his team broke the Partygate story. He produced the first evidence of a party in Downing Street during a COVID-19 lockdown, reporting on a gathering that took place in May 2020. He then obtained the now-famous footage of Downing Street staff at a December 2020 press-conference rehearsal, joking about a Christmas party that had secretly taken place at 10 Downing Street while the country was in lockdown.

The scoops kept coming: an email inviting Downing Street staff to a garden party in May 2020, evidence of a birthday party for Boris Johnson (for which Johnson was subsequently fined), and evidence of a leaving party for Johnson’s former Director of Communications, Lee Cain. The scandal that followed — parliamentary inquiries, police fines, public anger and, ultimately, Johnson’s resignation as prime minister and then as an MP — was one of the defining political stories of the decade, and Brand’s reporting was at its centre.

He has described the reaction in simple terms: the whole country felt betrayed, and seeing people held to account gave the public a sense of justice. The awards followed quickly: in 2021/2022 he won a string of national and international awards, including London Press Club Broadcaster of the Year, for the Partygate scoops, and in 2023 he was named Political Journalist of the Year at the RTS Television Journalism Awards.

Beyond Partygate: care homes, conversion therapy and Tonight

What competitor pages most often miss is that Brand’s investigative record did not begin or end with Partygate. In 2020 he was named Political Journalist of the Year at the British Journalism Awards as the foremost journalist reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic in the care sector. His investigations were the first to reveal that patients were being systematically discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, and he secured the only exclusive interview with the then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, about the scandal. His reporting was raised at Prime Minister’s Questions.

His undercover reporting on so-called gay conversion therapy, and his campaigning for a ban on the practice, was repeatedly referenced in Parliament, earned him Broadcaster of the Year at the PinkNews Awards in 2018, and later helped force the government to U-turn and reinstate its pledge to ban conversion therapy. He co-founded School Diversity Week, a campaign encouraging LGBT+ inclusivity in schools, and is a patron of the charity Just Like Us.

As a presenter, he took over ITV’s Tonight in April 2022, succeeding Julie Etchingham and following in the footsteps of Sir Trevor McDonald, while keeping his UK Editor role. He led a Tonight investigation, Searching for Patient Zero: Britain’s AIDS Tragedy, which uncovered the identity of John Eaddie, the first recorded person to die of AIDS in the UK, solving a forty-year mystery. He also hosts the ITV News podcast Acting Prime Minister, and presents on LBC Radio.

More recently, his reporting on assisted dying legislation has earned further recognition, including Specialist Journalist of the Year in 2025, and his coverage of the 2024 general election was praised for depth and fairness.

What competitors get wrong or leave out

Most competing pages about Brand share three weaknesses. First, they reduce him to Partygate alone, and miss the care-homes investigation, the conversion-therapy campaigning and the Patient Zero film — the work that shows Partygate was not a one-off, but the product of an investigative method.

Second, they make family life the angle, or they publish personal details without a reliable source. This article keeps the focus on career and public work, and does not use family as its hook.

Third, they get his job titles and dates wrong, describing him as a current political correspondent when he has been UK Editor since 2021, or missing his Tonight role entirely. The verified position is: political correspondent until 2021, UK Editor since 2021, Tonight presenter since April 2022.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Paul Brand?

A Welsh journalist, the UK Editor of ITV News since 2021 and presenter of ITV’s current affairs programme Tonight.

What was his role in Partygate?

He broke the story in 2021, producing the first evidence of a May 2020 Downing Street party, the December 2020 rehearsal video, the garden-party email, and evidence of Johnson’s birthday party and Lee Cain’s leaving party.

What did he do before becoming UK Editor?

He was a production journalist at ITV Wales, a political correspondent for ITV Yorkshire and ITV Tyne Tees & Border, covered politics for Good Morning Britain, and joined the ITV News network team as a political correspondent in 2016.

What is Tonight?

ITV’s weekly current affairs programme, which Brand has presented since April 2022, succeeding Julie Etchingham.

What other investigations is he known for?

Care-home discharges during COVID-19, undercover reporting on conversion therapy, the Searching for Patient Zero film on John Eaddie, and assisted dying legislation.

What is School Diversity Week?

A campaign Brand co-founded encouraging LGBT+ inclusivity in schools.

More on Presslix

• Tom Bradby: ITV News at Ten Presenter, Former Political Editor and Novelist
• Presslix Journalists & Media

Sources and Further Reading

• Wikipedia: Paul Brand (journalist) — career summary, ITV Wales start, Partygate scoops, UK Editor since 2021
• ITV News appointment announcement, 2021: Brand becomes UK Editor, with comment from ITV News editor Rachel Corp
• Radio NewsHub, March 2022: Brand to become presenter of Tonight from April 2022
• KPBA host profile, 2026: Partygate awards, care-homes investigation, conversion-therapy campaigning, Tonight and LBC roles
• Attitude magazine interview: politics from age 17, Oxford and City training, Partygate reaction, general-election preparation
• Radio Times profile: UK Editor role, Tonight succession from Julie Etchingham, PinkNews Broadcaster of the Year 2019

Note: career, investigation and award details are from the sources listed. Date of birth, age, height, salary, net worth and family details are intentionally not claimed as the angle of this article, and no unsourced personal figure is published.