Women With Balls: Alicia Kearns

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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, she spent some time in the private sector before deciding to become an MP. In 2019 she was elected in the Conservative safe seat, Rutland and Melton where she now lives with her family.

On the podcast, Alicia talks about why she left the civil service and the time she ‘came out’ as a Conservative. She also shares her love for her Rutland and Melton, describing her constituents as ‘her people’. But makes no bones about how hard she finds the job: ‘I love being able to campaign and change policy. But I can’t say I enjoy the job’. Now, as the chair of the foreign affairs select committee in Parliament, Alicia wants to improve the UK’s resilience in diplomacy and ensure Rishi Sunak won’t back away from Britain’s international responsibilities.

Produced by Natasha Feroze

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Women of Balls, where I Katie Balls speak to today's trailblazers.
0:09.0	My guest today comes from a tiny village in Cambridgeshire, where at school she took an early
0:12.9	interest in politics joining the youth parliament. After university, she got a job in the civil
0:18.1	service and worked on several campaigns from the Scottish referendum to counter-terrorism roles in Syria and Iraq.
0:23.6	In 2019, my guest is selected as a Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, and this year she has been selected as the first female chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in government.
0:32.6	Getting there was an all-plane sailing, she said of her time that her rivals dismissed her as an inexperienced young woman.
0:40.9	Now as seen as a foreign policy powerhouse, she's carved out a reputation for being hawkish on China and outspoken Afghanistan evacuation.
0:48.8	My guest today is Alicia Kerns.
0:51.0	So, Alicia, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for having me.
0:54.0	On this postcourse, we always begin by asking, was yours a happy childhood?
0:58.0	It really was.
0:59.0	I was incredibly lucky.
1:01.0	My parents had this kind of fairy tale love story, which I actually think is a little bit unfair,
1:05.0	because it gave some unreal expectations for love.
1:08.0	They met in Germany, and it was my dad's first day in Germany and my mum's last day
1:13.0	in Germany in the 70s and he flew home with her to England the next day because they were so
1:17.3	in love that that was it. Oh my god, what were they doing when they met? Was it by chance?
1:22.3	It was completely by chance. So she was lecturing about Irish politics on her year abroad
1:26.3	in Germany. They were both incredibly left-wing.
1:28.9	And so people thought that they should meet these two incredibly left-wing-minded
1:32.3	and interested in Irish politics people.
1:34.6	And love sprang from there.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.