Caroline Wheeler
Caroline Wheeler is political editor at The i Paper, combining Westminster scoops with long-running investigative work on policy failures and abuses of power. Her coverage focuses on how decisions taken at the top of government play out for citizens, using exclusive interviews and deeply sourced stories with senior politicians, advisers and officials. She is known for agenda-setting campaigns, from exposing the NHS contaminated blood scandal to uncovering modern slavery in fast-fashion supply chains and alleged espionage in Parliament. Her work has earned major journalism awards and campaign recognition, reflecting a blend of high-impact scoops and sustained advocacy on behalf of people harmed by policy and institutional failure.
Andy Burnham’s government and Labour’s internal pressures
At The i Paper, Wheeler leads coverage of Andy Burnham’s premiership, treating it as a test of Labour’s promises on fairness, tax and the welfare state. In her exclusive interview with Burnham on the future of the state pension triple lock and tax thresholds, she presses him on frozen allowances, fiscal drag and what pensioners have heard on the doorstep, framing the story around trust and living standards rather than headline pledges alone. She follows through with analysis of how Burnham’s Cabinet choices will shape policy, authoring prediction and reaction pieces that map who is likely to hold the great offices of state and what those appointments signal for economic, home affairs and health agendas.
Her work includes detailed examinations of the educational background of ministers, highlighting the unusually high share of Oxbridge-educated figures in Burnham’s top team and treating this as a window into how power and privilege are distributed in the new administration. She also reports on pressure from Labour’s trade union base, publishing an exclusive piece built around Unite leader Sharon Graham’s ultimatum on easing cost-of-living pressures, unfreezing income tax thresholds, cutting energy bills and taxing the wealthy, and uses that intervention to show how working-class frustration can turn into political volatility if expectations are not met.
Across these stories, her distinguishing line is to connect internal party manoeuvres and leadership decisions directly to the daily realities of pensioners, workers and voters rather than treating them as purely tactical Westminster games.
Exclusive stories built on deep access and inside information
Wheeler’s reporting often turns on information that powerful institutions would prefer to keep behind closed doors, drawing on long-established contacts in government, Parliament and diplomacy.
Her work has revealed alleged espionage within Parliament, setting out how a researcher with access to the heart of the political system was arrested on suspicion of spying for China and using that case to illustrate vulnerabilities in security and vetting. She was central to exposing Operation Yellowhammer, the secret contingency plan for a hard Brexit, publishing details that showed how officials were preparing for risks to supply chains, public services and everyday life while ministers publicly downplayed the consequences. At The i Paper she has reported on discussions within Donald Trump’s administration about taking over the Royal Mint Court site in London, originally intended for China’s “mega-embassy”, for a new US embassy, built from sources in the US State Department and senior Whitehall figures and framed as a potential geopolitical victory and symbolic rebuff to Beijing.
These pieces show a consistent method: she uses off-the-record briefings and on-the-record sources to reconstruct what is happening inside rooms the public cannot see, then anchors those revelations in concrete implications for diplomacy, security and the balance of power.
Long-form investigations and campaigning journalism
Wheeler brings an investigative sensibility to a politics brief, sustaining stories over years until they force institutional change. Her long campaign on the NHS contaminated blood scandal tracks the issue from its early days through to the launch of a public inquiry, following victims and their families and showing how a medical failure became a decades-long injustice that required political intervention. She uses case studies and evidence from frontline reporting to show how decisions made in health policy and procurement translated into catastrophic outcomes for patients, pressing governments across time on accountability and redress.
Her reporting on working conditions in fast-fashion supply chains exposed textile workers earning as little as £3.50 an hour to produce clothes for a major brand, helping to trigger a National Crime Agency investigation into modern slavery and demonstrating the link between consumer pricing, corporate practice and regulatory failure.
She has also investigated wider labour abuses and the impact of austerity-era policies, often returning to the same communities and industries to document how promises of reform compare with lived experience. This campaigning work distinguishes her from more transactional political reporters: she treats parliamentary debates and ministerial statements as only one part of longer narratives about victims, workers and neglected groups whose stories she continues to tell until outcomes change.
Analytical format, predictions and broadcast voice
Alongside investigations and exclusives, Wheeler produces structured analysis that helps explain complex political moments at speed. Her cabinet prediction and reaction pieces for The i Paper organise swirling speculation into clear scenarios, drawing on conversations with party insiders to set out who is in play for roles such as Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Health Secretary and what each outcome would mean for policy direction.
She writes in an explanatory format that foregrounds cause and effect, outlining how choices about personnel intersect with challenges such as the NEETs crisis, cost-of-living pressures and public service reform. On broadcast politics programmes she offers week-in-review assessments, discussing events such as the defeat of the Assisted Dying Bill, the resignation of a Prime Minister and Brexit anniversaries, and uses these slots to connect parliamentary set-pieces with longer-term trends in trust, party realignment and culture wars. Professional profiles describe a career spent in parliamentary journalism and senior roles across national and regional newspapers, adding institutional memory and a sense of historical context to her current analysis.
Across mediums, her style is direct and grounded in reporting, but always oriented towards explaining what a given decision or story will mean in practice for the people who have to live with it.
4 more politics journalists.
Abbi Garton-Crosbie
Abbi Garton-Crosbie is a multimedia political reporter who treats independence as a live process shaped by Holyrood power struggles, party manoeuvres and grassroots pressure. She works at The National, a pro-independence newspaper, covering how political power is contested and exercised in contemporary Scotland, with a core focus on parties, parliament and the mechanics of constitutional change. She reports on parliamentary votes, government strategy around future independence referendums, and elections across Scotland in the wider context of devolution in Wales and Northern Ireland. Her work centres on party leadership, resignations and internal conflict, including long-form interviews with senior politicians and coverage of emerging and smaller parties. She examines far-right activity, protest politics and movement organisation, and runs policy-driven reporting on rent caps, AI data centres, health boards and public services, across written, video and podcast formats.
Abubakar Ahmadu Maishanu
Abubakar Ahmadu Maishanu is a politics reporter with Premium Times who treats politics as a system of rules, contests and consequences rather than personalities. He focuses on power struggles, security shocks and governance disputes shaping party competition in northern Nigeria, especially how violence, corruption investigations and economic strain intersect with political authority. He reports on Bauchi’s 2027 governorship race, APC primaries and PRP realignment, tracking defections, party constitutions and factional manoeuvring. His coverage of Jigawa and Yobe follows power-sharing fights, candidate substitutions and Tinubu reelection mobilisation efforts. He links banditry and local security crises in Kano and Zamfara to political structures, using precise locations and casualty figures. His investigative work on alleged shady dealings around the Dala Inland Dry Port and reporting on soaring cooking gas prices add a corruption and economic hardship lens.
Aisha Iqbal
Aisha Iqbal covers local and regional politics for the BBC, with a distinct focus on grassroots power and how local decisions shape trust, representation and public services. She reports on Bradford Council decisions, waste services, cultural funding, regeneration grants and the use of public money. She also covers grooming gangs, community safety, political trust, elections, Muslim voters, Gaza, ceasefire campaigns and the links between faith, foreign policy and representation. Her work includes culture and public figures when they intersect with civic identity, including a feature on David Hockney. She connects committee-room votes, neighbourhood disputes and national debates, showing who gains, who loses and how communities respond. She reports across broadcast and online platforms in a clear, explanatory style. Earlier, she covered politics, culture and consumer issues for regional newspapers.
Alessia Simona Maratta
Alessia Simona Maratta stands out for showing how political decisions, regulations and conflicts ripple through communities, pairing national and global stories with on-the-ground voices and clear policy explanations. She is a digital reporter, producer and editor with Global News’ network news desk, covering breaking news, crime, politics, public health, housing, labour, immigration, environment and climate, social issues and features. Her recent work spans politics, public health regulation, labour and technology, and human-interest features that ground complex issues in everyday experience. She reports on politics, policy and community impact, public health and social debates, and labour and regulation at the intersection of technology, globalization and worker rights. Alongside hard news, she produces features that use individual stories, straightforward narrative arcs and accessible explanations to connect history, science and policy to everyday life.