Women With Balls: Shivani Raja

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Shivani Raja holds two Parliamentary honours: the youngest Tory MP and, in Leicester East, the only Conservative gain at the recent election; she is also the first of the new 2024 intake to appear on Women With Balls. With a background in science and business, not politics, she fought a whirlwind election campaign – not just against the Labour Party, but against her two most recent predecessors.

On the podcast, Shivani talks to Katy Balls about how she got into politics, why she is proud of Leicester’s multiculturalism, and about challenging her colleagues’ perceptions of ‘young people’. Shivani introduced James Cleverly at his leadership launch in September – what are her diagnoses of the 2024 election, Labour’s performance so far, and what the Conservatives need to do to win back the support of the British public?

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
0:05.1	Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription in print and online,
0:09.3	along with a free £20 £10,000 or Waitrose Voucher. Go to spectator.com. UK forward slash voucher.
0:17.8	Hello and welcome to Women with Balls, where I Katie Balls speak today as trailblazers.
0:21.6	My guest today is the holder of two unique parliamentary honours.
0:24.6	She is the Tory's youngest sitting MP and holds a striking title of the only Conservative Party gain at this year's general election,
0:32.6	one to remember for end of the year political quizzes.
0:35.6	Before going into politics, she was a semi-finalist in the 2017 Miss India-UK beauty pageant,
0:41.1	but in more recent conservative leadership beauty contests, she backed James Cleverly and even
0:46.1	opened his leadership launch.
0:47.5	Declaring that small businesses are a backbone, she gave her main in speech in Parliament just
0:51.4	last week, and she has talked about the importance of her background as a first-generation British citizen.
0:56.5	My guest today is Chavani Raja.
1:06.8	Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
1:08.7	The first member of the 2020-f24 intake of any party to come on.
1:13.4	And we tend to begin by saying, how would you describe your childhood?
1:18.2	Well, thank you for having me. And I had a happy childhood. And I almost feel guilty sometimes for saying that.
1:25.8	But not honestly, my parents worked incredibly hard.
1:29.6	They migrated in the late 70s.
1:31.8	And my dad did everything he could to really protect me and my siblings and kept us
1:38.2	in a bit of a bubble.
1:39.9	And I feel incredibly lucky and privileged for that.
	...

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