Podcast
Katy Balls speaks to women at the top of their respective games, about their passions, their battles, and what makes them tick. Katy is Political Editor of The Spectator.
Katy Balls speaks to women at the top of their respective games, about their passions, their battles, and what makes them tick. Katy is Political Editor of The Spectator.
Women With Balls
Rachael Maskell has been the MP for York Central since 2015. With over two decades experience working in the NHS, and as a trade unionist, she has championed causes on the left from improving healthcare to combating climate change. Yet, she has not been afraid to take what she says is an ‘evidenced approach’ to
Play 37 mins
Women With Balls
Dame Sarah Storey is Britain’s most successful Paralympian of all time. She is a 45-time World champion, a 23-time European champion, and a 77-time world recorder breaker – including times she broke her own records. Earlier this year she won her 18th and 19th Olympic golds at the Paris 2024 games. On the podcast, Sarah
Play 28 mins
Women With Balls
Dame Maureen Lipman has been a fixture of stage and screen for over five decades. She has been a member of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre company and the Royal Shakespeare Company; she is well known for her roles in acclaimed films like Educating Rita and The Pianist; and most recently she has had an award-winning
Play 36 mins
Women With Balls
Kirsty McNeill is a new Labour MP but certainly not new to the Labour movement. She is perhaps best known for hr time working as an advisor to the Browns; firstly in Number 10 during Gordon Brown’s time as Prime Minister, and later for both Gordon and Sarah Brown on their charity projects. Following her
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Claire Ainsley is a stalwart of left-wing politics. Formerly an executive director at social change organisation the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, she is currently leading a project on the renewal of the centre-left at the Progressive Policy Institute. Her first book, The New Working Class: How to Win Hearts, Minds and Votes, brought her to the attention
Play 42 mins
Women With Balls
Shivani Raja holds two Parliamentary honours: the youngest Tory MP and, in Leicester East, the only Conservative gain at the recent election; she is also the first of the new 2024 intake to appear on Women With Balls. With a background in science and business, not politics, she fought a whirlwind election campaign – not
Play 31 mins
Women With Balls
Daisy Cooper has been a stalwart of the Liberal Democrats for over a decade. From councillor to MP, she has served as the deputy leader of the party since 2020. First elected to parliament in 2019, she came to prominence when she represented the party in two of the general election debates earlier this year.
Play 35 mins
Women With Balls
Actress and writer Tracy-Ann Oberman is well known for her roles across theatre, radio and television, including Dr Who, Friday Night Dinner, It’s a Sin and, of course, EastEnders. Most recently, she has taken on one of the most famous, and problematic, Shakespearean roles: as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Inspired by her great-grandmother, she has reimagined the role as
Play 31 mins
Women With Balls
Labour’s Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson returns to Women With Balls in a special live edition of the podcast, recorded at Labour Party conference. The MP for Houghton and Sunderland South since 2010, Phillipson joined Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet in 2020, and was appointed Shadow Education Secretary the following year. She retained her brief following the general election,
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
From working on the 1997 general election campaign, to serving in the shadow cabinets of three leaders, politician Lucy Powell has been a prominent figure in the Labour Party for many years. First elected to parliament in 2012, she was appointed Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council following Labour’s
Play 27 mins
Women With Balls
Women with Balls has taken a summer break and will be back in September with a new series. Until then, here’s an episode from the archives, with Dame Karen Pierce, who will shortly complete her term as British Ambassador to the United States. Filmed in 2019, when Dame Karen was the UK’s Permanent Representative to
Play 30 mins
Women With Balls
Women with Balls has taken a summer break and will be back in September with a new series. Until then, here’s an episode from the archives, with current Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch MP. Widely seen as one of the Conservative Party’s rising stars upon her election to Parliament in 2017, her star has only
Play 39 mins
Women With Balls
Women with Balls will be back in the Autumn with a new series. Until then, here’s an episode from the archives, with the new Chancellor Rachel Reeves. On the podcast, she talks to Katy about being a teen chess champion, going to a school where her mum worked and what Labour needed to do to
Play 40 mins
Women With Balls
Actress Sophie Winkleman was born in London, educated at Cambridge, and has appeared in television and film roles across both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps best known for her roles as Big Suze in Peep Show and Zoey in Two and a Half Men, she is now patron to several children’s charities. On the episode,
Play 29 mins
Women With Balls
The most recent ‘mother of the house’, Harriet Harman has been an MP for 42 years. She has served in a number of cabinet positions, under six Labour leaders, both during government and opposition. She was also deputy leader of the Labour Party for 8 years. In some ways, her story is emblematic of how
Play 30 mins
Women With Balls
Nickie Aiken has been an elected public servant for 18 years. An MP since 2019, she has served as a deputy chairman and a vice-chair of the Conservative Party. She was also a councillor in Westminster for 16 years including as leader of the council and previously worked in public relations. On the episode, Katy
Play 37 mins
Women With Balls
Claudia Mendoza is one of the most high profile spokespeople for the Jewish community in Britain. She has studied the Middle East, and worked at various think tanks with a focus on Iran and the transitioning Arab states. But she now serves as CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council. On the podcast she tells Katy
Play 29 mins
Women With Balls
Shabana Mahmood is the shadow secretary of state for justice. She was born in Birmingham to migrant parents. After studying Law at Lincoln College, Oxford, where Rishi Sunak was a contemporary, she qualified as a barrister and lived and worked in London. First elected to Parliament in 2010, representing Birmingham Ladywood, she was one of
Play 45 mins
Women With Balls
Dr Lisa Cameron was born in Glasgow and grew up in East Kilbride, the constituency she now represents. After three elections under the SNP, she memorably defected to the Scottish Conservatives in 2023. At the time, Humza Yousaf described it as the least surprising news he’d had since becoming first minister. On the podcast, Lisa
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Young, female entrepreneurship is on the rise. Two years ago, 17,500 businesses were founded by women aged 16-25, which is 22 times greater than in 2018. Now, 20 per cent of all businesses across the UK are all-female-led. Yet, when it comes to investment, women consistently underperform their male counterparts. Why? And should more be
Play 28 mins
Women With Balls
Laura Farris comes from something of a political dynasty, both her father and uncle were MPs. The former even represented the same Newbury seat that she currently holds. She studied PPE at Oxford before working as a researcher for Hilary Clinton but she eschewed a political career to work firstly as a journalist and then
Play 31 mins
Women With Balls
Anne Jenkin was born in Essex to quite the political family, three of her grandparents were in the House of Lords, and two of them in the Commons as well. Her career in Westminster began in the 1970s and in 2005 she co-founded Women2Win with future Prime Minister Theresa May to encourage more women to
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
When it comes to retirement, working out how much you will need to set aside can seem like a monumental task. The average person has between 8 to 10 jobs over their lifetime. People are living longer – with the median retirement age at 65 and life expectancy at 80. What should people think about
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Thangam Debbonaire was born in Peterborough to an Indian father and English mother. She has been an MP since 2015 but before Parliament spent over 25 years working to end domestic violence. She served under Jeremy Corbyn as Shadow Minister for Arts and Heritage and has served in Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet since his leadership
Play 35 mins
Women With Balls
Justine Greening was born in Rotherham, the daughter of a steel worker and first in her family to go to university. Campaigning for the Conservatives, she won back a Tory stronghold from Labour in the 2005 general election becoming MP for Putney. She began politics in opposition, but became a Cabinet Secretary in David Cameron’s
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
Gina Miller was born in Guyana to a political family, but was sent to England for her education. Fleeing dictatorship, she couldn’t receive financial support from her family, and so began finding work in hotels and handing out flyers. With an entrepreneurial spirit, Gina set up her first company in 1987 – a property photographic company.
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Theo Clarke is Conservative MP for Stafford. She is the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Kenya and sits on the International Development Select Committee. Before being elected she set up and sold her business and then went on to be Chief Executive of an international development charity backed by Bill Gates. Theo got involved in
Play 28 mins
Women With Balls
Susan Hall is a born and bred Londoner running for one of the most important jobs in the city. After leaving school at 18 she had dreams of being a mechanic and struggled to get into technical college. She was later a business owner, running a beauty salon and hairdressing business. Susan has been involved in
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Jacqui Smith was born in Malvern, where she joined the Labour party aged 16. After graduating from Oxford, Jacqui moved to London and worked briefly as a parliamentary researcher but trained to be a teacher and became head of economics. The temptation to electoral politics eventually pulled her back. Having failed the first time, Jacqui
Play 34 mins
Women With Balls
Alison McGovern sits on Labour’s front bench as the shadow minister for work and pensions but was first elected as an MP in 2010. Growing up in Merseyside, her grandfather was a folk singer who wrote ‘My Liverpool Home’. Her father was a railwayman that campaigned for better working conditions, but it was her mother that
Play 27 mins