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

Today I'm delighted to be joined by Nikki Morgan, the Culture Secretary.

Morgan entered Parliament in 2010, where she was quickly promoted, and in 2014, attended

Cabinet as Minister for Women. She served as Education Secretary under David Cameron,

but was dismissed from the role when Theresa May entered 10 Downing Street.

Morgan backed Michael Gove during the Tory leadership campaign, but still made a return to Cabinet when Boris Johnson won the contest.

To the surprise of many, however, Morgan announced last month that she will not be seeking re-election,

explaining her decision, she said. Being

Loughborough's MP has been the greatest privilege of my life, but the clear impact on my family

and the other sacrifices involved and the abuse for doing the job of a modern MP can only be justified

if ultimately Parliament does what it is supposed to do. A keen advocate of liberal conservatism and a key player in the

Tories One Nation group, Morgan's departure has also been read by some as a sign that the Tories

are lurching to the right. The news certainly led Guardian columnist Polly Tornby to conclude,

Nikki Morgan has gone and with her what was left of moderation in the Tory party.

So with that, Nikki, thank you very much for joining us today.

And we can get to those points as we go.

And I suspect you might not agree entirely with the guardian on that.

But before we move on to your career, on this podcast,

we like to start by looking at what you were doing before you were in

...