The New Statesman

From Nazi to Marxist, Bridget Philipson, the Education Secretary, has faced intense criticism from all sides.

The Telegraph says she may be the most dangerous person in government.

But how exactly is she trying to reform the British education system? And is she really that dangerous? For the cover of this week's New Statesman magazine, our executive editor, Pippa Bailey, has written an extended profile of Philipson, exploring what motivates the education secretary and how consequential the next few months could be for her and the Labour Party. I'm Olly Dugmore, and you're listening to Daily Politics from the New Statesman.

Pippa joins me

in the studio now. Hello Pippa. Hello, OLLI. A pleasure to be podcasting for the first time with you. And a non-new studio. I know. We're blessing the studio. Pippa. Tell me about Bridget Philipson. how long did you spend with her?

What did you do?

Where did you go?

What's she like?

Um, um, Tell me about Bridget Philipson. How long did you spend with her? What did you do? Where did you go? What's she like?

I saw Bridget, I think, four times over the course of about two months. So the first time we met was doing some school visits in North London at the end of November. The first thing I said to

was that I didn't like mince pies either, which I felt kind of embarrassed by afterwards, but...

I think a good icebreaker. It happened. And then I went up to Washington, to her constituency

with her for the day. And then we met again in her office at the

Tomp for Education in Westminster and then the most enjoyable I would say the last

one we went for a dog walk and a pub lunch in North London near where she lives

I think she's the only dog owner I've come across who lets their dog off the

lead purposefully so it can chase squirrels I think think most dog owners do the opposite. Get them. Get those squirrels. Jack Russell called Maisie, I believe. Called Maisie. She's very sweet. Okay, excellent. Yeah, there was a moment in the piece where I got to the line about the Washington visit. And I thought, hold, I don't remember Pippa going to America with Bridget Phillips and clearly not. We're going to talk about her background. We're going to talk about

her childhood. Just for obviously our politicalist of the podcast, can you give us some political

context to Bridget, the education secretary? Does she belong to a faction? What's her political heritage?

She is kind of like Starma in a way in that she sort of doesn't have a tribe, I think.

So she's often considered to be of the sort of traditional right of the Labour Party.

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