Join Worcester College Provost, David Isaac CBE, as he interviews leading role models about their lives and careers.

Naz Shah MP has been the Labour Member of Parliament for Bradford West since 2015 and served in the Shadow Cabinet between 2018 and 2023. A former carer, NHS commissioner and mental health charity chair, Shah entered Parliament to advocate for women’s rights. Born in Bradford, she was sent to Pakistan at the age of 12 to escape her mother’s violent partner, where she was forced into an arranged marriage. Her mother was later jailed for killing the man who abused her and Shah worked with Southall Black Sisters to campaign for her release.

Inspired by her mother’s work as a Labour councillor and mayor, Emily Thornberry MP joined the Labour Party in her teens. After qualifying as a barrister in the mid-1980s, she began her career representing striking miners, Wapping print-workers and P&O seafarers. Emily won Islington South and Finsbury in 2005, in the wake of the Iraq War, by 484 votes. She has since been re-elected four times and in the shadow cabinet covered the Defence, Brexit, Foreign Affairs, International Trade, and Attorney General briefs.