This episode is sponsored by Lloyd's Banking Group, serving Britain's communities and households for more than 250 years.

Hello and welcome to Women of Balls, where I Katie Balls speak to the day as trailblazers.

My guest today was born in Malvern where, as a student, she joined the Labour Party, age 16.

After graduating from Oxford, she moved to London, had a stint as a parliamentary researcher,

but trained to be a teacher and became head of economics.

The temptation to electoral politics eventually pulled her back.

Having failed the first time, my guest became the M.B. for Reddish in 1997,

labelled as one of Blair's babes. Within two years, she joined the government, and under Gordon Brown,

she became the first female home secretary, a post she later described as a poison chalice to her successor.

She resigned over a dispute related to parliamentary expenses. Since leaving politics,

has served as a chair on several public and private posts, and she also now co-hosts our weekly

LBC podcast, as well as live shows of Ian Dale, and shares two NHS trusts. My guest today is

Jackie. Jackie, thank you for joining the podcast today. We always begin by

asking the same question, which is, was yours a happy childhood? It was enormously happy, Katie.

Yeah. And in fact, I'm sitting here in Malvern now where I live, which is also, as you rightly

say, where I grew up. Very stable family.

Both my parents were teachers, but also involved in local politics.

So that's where I got a sort of love of politics from to begin with.

Local comprehensive school, lots of drama.

That prepared me well for future life, sport and music. So very

fortunate background, very fun opportunities and I consider myself to be pretty blessed.

And I mentioned in the introduction you, I think, turned to Labour quite early on,

...