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
Tulip Siddiq is the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn and shadow economic secretary to the treasury. She was born into to a prestigious Bangladeshi family. Her grandfather was the founding father of Bangladesh, and her aunt is the current Prime Minister. After joining the Labour Party at 16, she studied first at UCL followed
Play 37 mins
Women With Balls
Isabel Oakeshott is a journalist and author of numerous political biographies, formerly the political editor for the Sunday Times. She’s known for a number of scoops over the years, including Chris Huhne’s speeding ticket and revealing Matt Hancock’s lockdown WhatsApps. On the episode, she talks to Katy about why toughness was a quality her parents
Play 46 mins
Women With Balls
Penny Junor is a journalist, biographer and author of several books. She began writing at the Evening Standard. Soon into her career, Penny was given an opportunity to write a book about Princess Diana which led to several more books about the Royals – The Firm: The Troubled House of Windsor and Charles: Victim or Villain? Aside from
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Dambisa Moyo is an economist, life peer and author of five books: from Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa to her most recent, How Boards Work: And How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World. Born in Zambia, Dambisa grew up in a house where discussing politics
Play 26 mins
Women With Balls
Sam McAlister is a producer and author of Scoops: The BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews from Prince Andrew to Steven Seagal. When she worked for Newsnight, she was the producer who secured the infamous interview with Prince Andrew, conducted by Emily Maitlis. This interview eventually led to Prince Andrew being suspended from public duties and stepping back
Play 36 mins
Women With Balls
Baroness Martha Lane Fox is a dotcom pioneer having started lastminute.com in 1997. She sits on the board of some of the country’s most prominent brands, including Marks & Spencer and Channel 4, and has made significant contributions to the government’s digital agenda. On the podcast, Martha talks about the early years of the dotcom bubble; the
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
Penny Mordaunt is the Conservative MP for Portsmouth North and one of the most recognisable women in British politics. She has served in several ministerial roles from International Development to Defence and she is currently Leader of the House. On the podcast, Penny talks about the last two tumultuous years; some of her proudest moments in
Play 27 mins
Women With Balls
Ash Regan is the MSP for East Edinburgh who has served as minister for community safety. Since Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, she has put herself forward to be the next First Minister for Scotland. Born in Biggar, Ash moved to England as a child and grew up in Devon. She surprised her family during the referendum
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
Women make up half of the workforce in the UK. Yet when it comes to high-skilled, high-income jobs in tech, just 26 per cent of the workforce are women and 77 per cent of tech leaders are men. Jobs in tech filter into almost every sector and women from all walks of life are discovering
Play 30 mins
Women With Balls
For this special episode of Women With Balls, the government’s Attorney General, Victoria Prentis joins Katy along with Vika, a young Ukrainian woman who came over to the UK under the Homes For Ukraine scheme after the war began. On the podcast, Victoria talks about how life has changed since Vika joined the family and
Play 26 mins
Women With Balls
Miriam Cates is the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, Miriam worked as a science teacher and business owner and spent many years raising her three children at home. On the podcast, Miriam talks about her entry into politics through village life as the local Parish Councillor; how her
Play 27 mins
Women With Balls
Nimco Ali is an activist, government advisor, author and FGM survivor. Born in Somaliland, Nimco moved to the UK as a child fleeing civil war. On holiday in Djibouti aged 7, she was subjected to female genital mutilation, a traumatising moment in her life that led her to become one of the world’s leading anti-FGM
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
Since the pandemic, the nature of working has changed, and in some cases, revealed the weaknesses in the experience of work for women. With some companies eager to get back to business as usual, women are now demanding more from work, and they are leaving jobs in unprecedented numbers to get it. Women could benefit
Play 28 mins
Women With Balls
Dame Rachel de Souza is the Children’s Commissioner for England. Having spent more than 30 years in education, she grew a reputation for her unconventional but effective ways of turning poor-performing schools around and increasing pupil attendance. She was selected as Children’s Commissioner in December 2020, weeks before the Covid 19 pandemic. Since this time,
Play 25 mins
Women With Balls
Many are already feeling the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis. Choices between ‘heating and eating’ have become routine for some households, as bills and food costs rise. With money at the forefront of everyone’s minds, feelings of stress, shame, and embarrassment are causing a decline in mental health. Research has shown that the cost-of-living crisis
Play 30 mins
Women With Balls
Kezia Dugdale was the leader of the Scottish Labour party from 2015 to 2017, taking on the job at a tough time following a near-wipeout defeat at Westminster. She served as an MSP for the Lothian region until 2019, and now runs the John Smith Centre for Public Service at the University of Glasgow. On
Play
Women With Balls
Emma Sayle is the founder and CEO of Killing Kittens, a sexually liberated social network where women come first. She grew up in a military family, and when not in boarding school, Emma would visit her parents all over the world. On the podcast, Emma talks to Katy about her ‘outsider’s mindset’ – never truly
Play 29 mins
Women With Balls
Alicia Kearns is the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, and the first female chair of the foreign affairs select committee. Alicia built a reputation as a foreign policy powerhouse working in communications and counter-terrorism for the civil service. After leaving, some time was spent in the private sector before Alicia decided to become an
Play 35 mins
Women With Balls
Fiona Hill is a seasoned political advisor, consultant and strategist. Born in Glasgow, she began her career as the first-ever female football reporter in Scotland. Then after moving into politics, she later became the first female chief of staff in No.10 under Theresa May. In her first interview since leaving Downing Street five years ago,
Play 40 mins
Women With Balls
Justine Roberts is the CEO and founder of Mumsnet. A website that makes parents’ lives easier by pooling knowledge, advice and support on everything from baby names, and household tips, to who they’re voting for in the next election. On the podcast, Justine talks about being a young girl from Surrey, mad about Liverpool football
Play 26 mins
Women With Balls
Louise Perry is a journalist, campaigner and author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. It offers a new guide to sex in the 21st century – rather than herald sex positivity as a good thing for women, she argues it has had negative consequences. Her work has been published in multiple news outlets including
Play 30 mins
Women With Balls
Before the new Women With Balls series arrives in Autumn, we have prepared a special episode from our archives. Katy Balls interviewed Liz Truss four years ago when she was chief secretary to the Treasury. Back then she was a straight talker who was gaining a reputation for her speeches that would often turn into
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
Until July 6, Victoria Atkins was the Minister of State for Refugees and Minister of State for Prisons and Probation. But as dozens of her colleagues quit in the wake of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid’s resignations (which themselves followed No. 10’s messy handling of the Chris Pincher affair), Atkins resigned too, writing that ‘values
Play 25 mins
Women With Balls
Anne-Marie Trevelyan is the Secretary of State for International Trade and the MP for Berwick-Upon-Tweed. In the episode, she tells Katy about what it was like to join the City in the 90s, what she calls ‘the mysterious management by the civil service of its ministers’ and what she makes of the rumours that she
Play 33 mins
Women With Balls
Women of menopausal age make up a tenth of the UK workforce (and a quarter of all working women). The symptoms of menopause can make work much harder, they include both physical and mental, from hot flushes and brain fog to insomnia. But at a time when many may be reaching the peak of their
Play 32 mins
Women With Balls
Julie Bindel is a radical feminist, journalist and activist. Growing up in Darlington, she left school aged 15, and at 16 moved to Leeds in search of – in her own words – ‘scary-sounding feminists’. In the 90s, she founded Justice For Women, a feminist campaigning organisation that supports, and advocates on behalf of, women who
Play 30 mins
Women With Balls
Frances Haugen is an American data scientist, most well known for her whistleblowing of Facebook’s failures at controlling misinformation. Her insider knowledge allowed the Wall Street Journal to publish a series of exposés about the social media platform, which became known as ‘The Facebook Files’. She has testified before the US Congress, the European Parliament
Play 39 mins
Women With Balls
Kemi Badenoch is the MP for Saffron Walden and a minister in Michael Gove’s Levelling Up department. On entering parliament in 2017, Kemi was quickly pegged as one of the Conservative Party’s rising stars and an example of what she calls the “British Dream”, going from immigrant to parliamentarian in the space of one generation.
Play 39 mins
Women With Balls
Nadine Dorries is the Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and MP for Mid Bedfordshire. After leaving school at 16, Dorries went on to become a nurse and an entrepreneur before entering politics at the age of 49. She was a minister in the Department of Health during the pandemic,
Play 46 mins
Women With Balls
The cost of living is rising, as is the cost of renting. Zoopla estimates that rents are rising at the fastest rate in 14 years, which means that the average rent in the UK is now over £1000 a month.This is partly a pandemic effect, especially in London as people return to offices. But Covid
Play 34 mins