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Hello, welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than a newsy interrogation

of someone who shapes our political thinking about what has shaped theirs.

My guest this week is a girl from a railway town whose dad worked on the railways

and who's now got the job of, in the words of a government press release this week,

delivering a plan to smash a broken rail system by ending decades of poor service.

She is the Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander.

She's been involved in transport so long she's even got a train named after.

But perhaps she, like many of us, is wondering this week whether all the plans that this government set out could soon be disrupted by the need to spend more, much more, on defence.

As Donald Trump tells Europe, it is time to look after your own backyard.

Heidi Alexander, welcome to political thinking.

Thanks for having me, Nick.

As I prepared for this interview, I kept coming across one theme about you.

Go on then.

You're quite shy.

Oh, really?

Yeah, your dad says you're shy.

You've talked about grappling with confidence.

I wonder on a day like this.

Yeah.

And as well as talking to me, you've done that a day pregnant.

You've done a whole round of interviews on news.

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