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Hello and welcome to Women with Balls, where I Katie Balls speak to today's trailblazers.

My guest today was born in London to a doctor and barrister, educated at St. Paul's

and then the University of York, where she studied politics and later qualified as a solicitor.

First elected to Parliament in a by-election in 1982, she has gone on to serve in a number of

cabinet roles, both in government and opposition, and accrued many accolades, the first ever minister for women,

the first female Solicitor General and the first female Labour Minister to take PMQs.

She has served in roles under various Labour Party leaders, Michael Foote, Neil Kinnick, John Smith,

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miller Band. And she was also deputy leader of the Labour Party

for eight years. At 42 years' continuous parliamentary. And she was also deputy leader of the Labour Party for eight years.

At 42 years continuous parliamentary service, she was most recently the mother of the house,

but is stepping down at the general election. My guest today is, of course, Harriet Harmon.

Harriet, thank you for coming on the podcast today. We was just saying before we hit record that it feels strange. There's a podcast being going on for so many years and we have not had you

when we read out the introduction. Well, there's a reason for that, which is that I was,

after you set up your podcast, more or less continuously, I was chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee

that was doing inquiries and therefore you kind of have to step back from party politics.

If you're investigating with a team of cross-party MPs on your committee and you're investigating

MPs, you've got to not be doing party politics.

So I was like

imperda and it was really relaxing. I mean, it wasn't relaxing for the people who were investigating,

but it was relaxing not to do politics. But I'm glad to be back in the fray and on your podcast, Katie.

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