How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S5, Ep8 How to Fail: Jess Phillips

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Well, old friend, here we are again. The end of another season. Where does the time go?I saved this guest for the finale because she's bloody spectacular. Jess Phillips is the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, a campaigner on women's rights, an outspoken critic of Brexit, anti-semitism and the politics of the hard-left, and the author of an acclaimed book, Everywoman: One Woman's Truth About Speaking The Truth.She joins me to talk about coping with failure in politics, living with daily death threats and how she stays sane by prioritising her female friends. She talks about the failure in contraception (!) that resulted in her eldest son, her failure to get on the Home Office Fast Track scheme and, in an extremely moving admission, her self-perceived failure to fix her brother's drug addiction.This makes it sound pretty heavy, but Jess is so naturally funny and such a self-deprecating force of nature, that I promise you this interview will leave you feeling energised and quite possibly punching the air.That's it for season five (apart from one bonus live record COMING SOON. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss out). I'll be back in the autumn with eight brilliant new guests.*A THANK YOU FROM ME:Thank you so much for subscribing and rating and reviewing and for all your lovely messages over this season and all the others. It really does mean the world to me. Truly. And if you don't like me / this podcast / actually took time out of your day to leave a one-star review / worry that my guests all went to Oxbridge (they didn't) / are too middle-class (they aren't) / think I'm too gushing (well...ok, maybe you have a point there, but I genuinely mean it when I say someone's amazing...) then please know that however angry or sad or lonely or un-heard you feel, I send you nothing but love in return. Bet that winds you up, doesn't it?To the rest of you: I feel so blessed for your companionship on this crazy, beautiful journey. You have helped me make sense of things. You have met me in a place of vulnerability and made me feel so much stronger. You have shown me that love, compassion and kindness is strength. You have taught me what I always suspected: that failure does not have to be an end point, but can instead be a stepping stone on a journey towards greater understanding. Thank you.*Jess Phillips's new book, Truth to Power, is out in October and available to pre-order here.*I am thrilled to be taking How To Fail on tour around the UK in October, sharing my failure manifesto with the help of some very special guests. These events are not recorded as podcasts so the only way to be there is to book tickets via www.faneproductions.com/howtofail* The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day, is out now and is available here.*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin and sponsored by Teatulia. To contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayJess Phillips @jessphillipsChris Sharp @chrissharpaudioNaomi Mantin @naomimantinTeatulia @TeatuliaUK      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest this week is the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips. She was raised along with her three older brothers by parents who gave her a Labour membership card for her 14th birthday, a gift Phillips has since jokingly described as the worst present ever. She took herself off to sit the 11 plus against her family's wishes and got into the local grammar school before graduating from Leeds University and later working for Women's Aid, where she started as a PA in 2009. Within seven years, she was addressing a United Nations Congress on Violence Against Women and had been elected to Parliament. That might give you some idea of her drive, as does the fact that she had her first

child aged 23, once relied on benefits to make ends meet, and grew up with a brother who was a heroin addict. Many of these experiences made their way into her critically acclaimed first book, Every Woman, published in 2017. Phillips stands out in Westminster because of her ability to be herself and to talk to people who disagree with her, while never forgetting what real life actually looks like. But it has not always been easy. Her criticism of the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has meant she receives death and rape threats from both the hard left and right, and has had a panic room installed at her constituency office. After her friend, the Labour MP Joe Cox, was murdered,

Phillips' eldest son asked her, is it worth it, mummy? She replied, the trouble is, it is. Jess Phillips. Hello. Such an honour to welcome you onto How To Fail. I mean, after that introduction, it seems like it would be an honour. But that's all you. How does it feel hearing yourself referred to in those ways? I mean, when you put it all into one paragraph,

it sounds like, you know, there was quite a lot of downtime in between a lot of those things. Makes you sound remarkable when it's all in one paragraph. So, yeah, well, I feel pretty pleased with myself. You are remarkable. How old are you now? I'm 37. Disgustingly young still. How dare you? I feel like Stella Creasy always says that I'm like the Kim Kardashian of Parliament

and that I'm always permanently in my mid-30s. She's like, I'm sure you were 35 when you got here and four years later you're still just 35. Yeah, I suppose it is quite young to have done some of the things that I have done. Do you think you've always been someone with drive? I mean, someone who starts off as a PA and then ends up addressing the UN? Yes, actually. My mum always says that when I was born, I took one look at her

and she could tell that, you know, I was going to be the boss, not her. And I was always really driven as a kid. Certainly in childhood. I suppose I would say that in my family I stood out as being, we don't call it this much anymore, but I was bossy and I would want things done my way and I would want things to be happening all the time and I wanted to do well at school

and I wanted to be considered to be clever. I wanted to be considered to be the brightest person in a room. No two ways about it. I'd say that waned as I got through my teenage years. When I was little, I was like that. I was driven. But when I was a teenager, I wasn't driven by anything but having a laugh and snogging boys and having fun.

But I suppose, actually, it's funny that even the attitude I took towards having a good time was driven like I was going to have the best time I was going to be the wildest I was going to try everything and never miss out on anything so yeah I think I've always been a person who if you're going to do something do it to its absolute maximum you were always going to be someone who when asked what the naughtiest thing is you've ever done was not going to say run through a field of weed definitely not went through a field of weed no definitely not although nowadays you know I'm just one of the pack aren't I because everybody's been going on about all the Tory leadership candidates been going on about which drugs they've taken no I was never that was never ever going to

be the naughtiest thing but I was asked on a radio program with some other Tory candidates and the woman who was answering the question Suella Braverman another Tory MP she said she'd once eaten a whole packet of biscuits I was just like oh god love I did that this morning so I told a story about how I jumped over the fence at Glastonbury and broken my ankle and then on a broken ankle had to run from a policeman on a horse who was trying to catch me. Oh, did you escape? Yeah, totally escaped. My friend Helen was just like, get up and run. What is wrong with you?

And I was like, I think I've broken my ankle. There's that drive. There's the Jess Phillips drive right there. So I should explain that we're talking actually a few weeks before the Tory leadership election. So by the time you listen to this podcast terrifyingly we'll have a new prime minister who probably would have taken cocaine and we are also speaking in your office so there might be the occasional sound of typing but interesting I spoke there about how your eldest son had said to you is it worth it and your response had been the trouble is it is which

is a really beautiful exchange but how do you honestly keep going? Where do you get your energy from? Do you have strategies in place to deal with? Yes, I didn't used to. I used to just sort of keep on going until I ran out of steam and would find myself in situations where I felt terribly frightened of the job that I have and some of the things that I'm expected to do. where I felt terribly frightened of the job that I have and some of the things that I'm expected to do but now I have very specific what I would call like plugging back in sessions so I have to at

least spend a day in my constituency office on a day when the public are coming in or out once a week I have to do that because without that you start to lose sight of the reality of why you're doing any of the things that you're doing and what you're fighting for here in Westminster. But also, I have to, every Friday morning, and I do it without fail, I go and sit and drink coffee with my girlfriends after the school run on a Friday morning. I make an absolute effort to take my son to school on a Friday, to go and sit with my friends and download just for one hour, and I will feel immediately better and able to take on the world. But I have to have those things. Otherwise, you forget what's the point of any of it. I mean, some of the things that get thrown at you when you're a Member of Parliament, some of the hate, some of the difficult

challenges, just some of the, you've got 10 minutes to prepare and now speak for an hour. You know, I don't not suffer from anxiety about those things. I absolutely do. But practice is the truth. Practice makes perfect. You get used to, you do get used to this life. Even when I want to give it up

and I desperately want to give it up sometimes and just go back to being a normal person you sit back and you think it's definitely worth the bother it's definitely worth people hating you because if you step aside because people hate you hate still exists in the world and you're not countering it and if everybody always stepped aside I'm much more scared of giving up than I am of carrying on. I read this thing in an interview that you said about how when you catch the tube in London, you have your back close to the wall. And when you're sitting in the bay window at home, you're conscious that someone might shoot you. And I think it's really important for people to know this, that this is a daily reality. Politics now, this is a daily reality for our MPs.

And is that really, that's how you think on a day-to-day basis? Yes. It's worse when I'm at low ebb. I find it hard to be reasonable and think rationally about my own safety when I'm really busy or there's a million other things on my mind or I'm feeling anxious about something else. The sense that I am a target goes right to the top of the pile. But yes, on any given day, I will think about my security and my safety and the safest way for me to travel somewhere, the safest way for me to speak or give somebody information about where I'm going to be. So for most people, if you're going to go and do an event, you will just put out, oh, I'm going to be at this place at this time.

For me, that has to be risk assessed. That has to be checked through. And these aren't small things when it's every single moment of your life. I feel it much less so in Birmingham, funnily enough. I feel it much less so because people don't bother me there, really. People are used to seeing you going about your normal life and you feel a sort of safety of your community. And I always feel like my own community protects me.

But Jo was murdered in her community. So you just absolutely never know. Do you think it will get better? Yes, I think it will get better. And if I thought it wouldn't, what would be the point in carrying on, I suppose? Yes, I think it will get better. I think it is a cyclical thing. Fascism and hatred and division.

This is not new. You know, the idea of identity politics isn't new. Identity politics has existed since the beginning of time and we have cycles where the rise of the right wing or the rise of hatred and division, both left and right in fact, comes round and has to be challenged once again. We kid ourselves in this nice liberal democracy that we live in that liberal democracy is the default position.

And in fact, liberal democracy has really only existed for 70 years. We've got the whole of human history that comes before. So yes, I think it will get better, but it will only get better if people challenge it and people keep speaking up about it and people stop normalising it. The trouble we have now is the normalisation through social media, through the idea that it feels like everybody's involved in the battle because everything is so divisive. But I think it will get better. I mean, you've got to think it will

get better. I've got a 10-year-old son. I want him to live in a happy world. I've got to think that when he's 20, the idea that antisemitism was wildly on the rise, or that Islamophobia was just a totally acceptable thing for the President of America to partake in. I've got to think that he will laugh at how backward we were. I've got to hope that that's the case. I want to get on to your failures, which by the way, are brilliant. Which is always an odd thing to say about failures, but they're particularly good ones. But I wondered if I could ask you just more generally what your relationship with failure is like, because you belong to two groups I'm fascinated by. You're an MP, so I feel like you

have to deal with the idea of failure quite routinely because you might lose your seat. And also you're a woman. And many of the women that I've spoken to on this podcast feel that they fail every single day in almost every single way and it does seem to be that there is like a gender divide about how we look at failure so what's your overarching relationship with failure? I would say that I'm no fan of failing at things I tend not to do something unless I think I'm going to be the best person at doing it. And that can be really flighty. That can be like, well, I'll get up there and do it because I reckon I could do a better job than you with literally no evidence to back that up. So both cocky and lacking in failure. But I definitely have the gender element of what

you're saying. I definitely feel like I am failing as a mother all the time and if I'm not failing as a mother then I'm failing as a representative it's almost like you have to pick which one you're going to fail at this week when actually you could just be good enough at both of them which I like to think if my children were what they would say well yeah you're good if you're good enough mom and I think that's probably what they'd say. But I certainly feel like I fail my children quite regularly. And that is based on no evidence other than what is in my own head. And being a Member of Parliament, yeah, failure, it's like a platitude that you automatically say it's not forever, you know that it's not forever, you know that this is a risky job,

a risky take, and that failure for you will be very public and will be fairly painful but you go into it expecting one day to fail so you are sort of prepared all the time for that I think people pretend that they're more okay with it than they actually are because I think it's pretty public and brutal to have to stand on a stage with the country watching while you fail your job interview I mean imagine being in a job interview and it being broadcast on Sky it would be painful that would wouldn't it yeah not even just the job interview process the bit where they tell you you haven't got the job and why like being on the telly it's a bit of a shit thing to happen you have a really interesting relationship with failure when you're a member of parliament because you fail all the time especially if you're an opposition

member although it's the same for most backbench mps is that you have to lead with the idea that you might fail in almost every endeavoravour, whether that's trying to get someone a house, trying to get someone's immigration sorted, or trying to change the law. When you start and take the first step in anything that you do as a Member of Parliament, the likelihood is that at first, at the very least, you're going to fail in that endeavour. And so I lead with that with my constituents. I say, I'm almost certainly going to be able to do nothing about this, but let's give it a go. Actually, the triumph of your failures, that is the constant fuel that keeps members of parliament going. Pushing through failures is fundamental part of the job. That's such an incredible way of putting it, the triumph of

your failures and pushing on through. Talking of failure specifically and failure in motherhood your first failure is actually I think this is literally one of my favorite of all time failure in contraception and it wasn't even that like the contraception failed I totally failed to use any contraception um I totally total failure of and bear in mind that I am a person who went to school under the Blair years of the teenage pregnancy I had to like hold a crying baby that like doll thing I was the exact age that they targeted free condoms at every week at school. Yet, in reality, I totally failed to do anything about that when I first got together with my now husband. And actually, I think that I was leaning on another failure because I had had endometriosis when I was probably about 19, 18, 19. And I thought my body had failed and I wouldn't be able to have a baby. So I failed to pay any attention to contraception. And within the first four weeks

of going out with my then boyfriend, now husband, I was pregnant. So let's start back a bit and talk about the endometriosis. How did that make you feel on an emotional level, the idea that you wouldn't be a mother? Total failure. It made me feel like less of a woman. It made me feel like it didn't matter what I did with myself and that I had no future. So when I thought that I wouldn't be able to have kids,

I found that really... And at the time, I'm saying this in retrospect, at the time, I don't think I knew it consciously but I sort of stopped caring about my physical health I stopped caring about looking after myself or trying to build a future for myself so whilst I'd had all that drive for all those years I basically felt a bit worthless which is terrible as a feminist and certainly not what my mother would have wanted from me. I stopped caring about what job I had.

I stopped trying to drive forward in my career. And I stopped caring about the substances that I put in my body because I didn't care. I just was like, whatever, I'll eat badly, I'll drink, I'll take drugs, it doesn't matter, because I probably only live till I'm 40 genuinely like I never know I was quite to be honest some of it was really good fun I wish that people would admit that actually going a bit rogue is also some top bumps it's true I can so relate to what you're saying not because I had endometriosis but because I had fertility issues and I don't

have children and I don't know whether I ever will and I think that the language around fertility medicine and diagnosis is often the language of failure however feminist you are you can't help but feel you fail to fulfill your biological imperative I mean it's funny I failed to have a home birth without drugs when I gave birth to son who came from failure and contraception. It's a litany of failures. And my mum was this total, like, earth mother. Like, she shelled babies like peas and had them all at home and, like, I don't know, like, burnt the placentas in the back garden and was part of Le Leshy League, which is, I don't know, some sort of bat-fink group for breastfeeding.

And I remember turning to my mum when I'd failed to do it without drugs because my son's cord was around his neck and saying I'm so sorry to my mum and like being really like I'm really sorry I failed you she was like you stupid get do you know what failed me you loon don't be so bloody ridiculous but you do feel a woman and her fertility is all the language of failure like the failure is constantly put on you all the time so four weeks into dating tom who is now your instagrammable husband indeed we were laughing beforehand about how jess's husband is one of the most handsome husbands on instagram he's a regulation hottie. Four weeks in, you discover you're pregnant. What then happens? Do you tell Tom straight away? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I told him straight away. I remember reading,

it was like one of those modern, they were only just existed then, that flashes pregnant at you, the pregnancy tests. I did it at New Street Station in... Glamour. Total glamour. I'd come back from Houston, I'd been at work so I took the pregnancy test at New Street Station and it flashed pregnant at me I mean to be fair we were living together already I mean I'm a quick mover wow that is quick I mean not really I had been evicted from my house so I was basically homeless so he said when I presented as I was living with him he was allowing me to stay with him for a few weeks, is actually the reality that has been rewritten by what happened next.

I rang him and told him, and when he came home, we sort of sat down and talked about it. And we didn't make a decision then and there that we would go through with the pregnancy. I had made the decision literally the second I saw whether I was pregnant or not and that has been the case each and every time I've got pregnant that I knew the second that I saw the result what I was going to do about it so I deep down knew that I wanted to have Harry but I wasn't

going to present that to Tom at the time as a sort of fait accompli so we had sort of lots of conversations and said I'd go and talk to my mum about it. And he would talk to his parents because we were young, you know. You were 22, weren't you? Yeah, I was 22 at the time. And we were not long out from living with our parents. So we sort of had a chat about that. When I went to see my mum, I just said, I don't think I'm ready.

And she just said, well, you never will be. So might as well do it now. She just blatantly wanted a grandchild because I've got a brother who's like 12 years older than me and he didn't have any kids. And she was like, come on, crack on with this. She blatantly was thinking of herself. Eventually, though, when I said to Tom, look, I think we should do this. He was always throughout like it is totally your decision and I hope we can make it together.. He was always throughout, like, it is totally your decision and I hope we can make it together,

but at the end of the day, it is your decision. Actually, the moment when we made the decision and the first person we told was our friend Rue and Alex McCorkendale, my best friend. She's the one who set up this podcast meeting. She did. Thank you, Alex. I remember telling them and when we told them,

I remember Tom looking really, really happy and just accepting that we were going to be happy about this. It was difficult, yeah. Was it terrifying when you had the baby? Absolutely terrifying. I was in Sainsbury's in Kings Heath in Birmingham. Again, so glamorous. So glamorous. I was pushing himainsbury's in Kings Heath in Birmingham. Again, so glamorous. So glamorous.

I was pushing him in the buggy and I just started to like laugh hysterically because I realised I had a baby. He was about a week old. And it was, I think, the first time I actually realised what I'd done. And then I was thinking, did I have this baby so that I'd have something to talk about? Like, did I decide to have this baby because it seemed like the cool thing to do? And just the dawning realisation that I had a baby and I was a mum. And I just started to laugh and cry hysterically in the Sainsbury's.

But it was terrifying. I've never ever felt fear. I think that you might think that you've been scared until you have a child. I'd never really felt fear I think that you might think that you've been scared until you have a child I'd never really felt fear and every moment of every day I felt frightened that I was going to do something wrong and that something would happen to Harry and that I had to check on him all the time and had to prove myself that I was going to be able to do it because you are basically telling yourself constantly that you're going to fail. That is the constant feeling, especially for young mums, I think, is that you have got to prove that you're not a failure

because the default position, like innocent till proven guilty, you are a failure until you can prove otherwise. And that was really difficult. And it affects most women and their first children I would say especially young mums their firstborn children are often very much the product of that anxiety so my two children one is really thinky Harry is like thinky and will like stress about things and really analyze things whereas Danny, honestly, he will go off and take any old risk. He'd play with knives on the highway.

He wouldn't care. Whereas Harry would give me a 17 point plan why he shouldn't even cross the road. So yeah, you project that onto your child. And I was terrified. And it's also a time when I guess you're handling the idea of your relationship and whether that's going to make it through or whether that's going to fail. Because, again, it's such early days. Totes. I know. Although, to be honest, actually, it never ever crossed my mind that me and Tom wouldn't make it.

Until I was elected to Parliament, it never crossed my mind. Me and Tom were friends before and I'd known him since I was like 12 years old. So it wasn't like I didn't know him as a person but being in a relationship with him it is obviously different than living together and buying a house together and parenting together but it never once crossed my mind that we wouldn't succeed together and I remember when I held Harry in my arms and really really felt like I really really loved him one of the reasons I really really loved him was because he was Tom's son. And so I really, really, really love my husband,

not just because he's a regulation high. Because he didn't used to be. I don't know where that has come from. Men definitely get better with age, is all I can say. As I deteriorate, he improves. That's not true at all. He's become level with you. Oh, that's kind. Yeah, no become level with you oh that's kind yeah

no I never actually worried that me and Tom wouldn't make it through there wasn't the part of the element of the fact that we hadn't been together very long was we got to know each other much better whilst we were growing up and I often think with Harry my eldest son that me Tom and him grew up together that there is a really strong bond between the three of us because we sort of just had to muddle through together, whereas to Danny we are like proper sort of austere parents who tell him what to do and have like routine and discipline, whereas Harry, me and Tom, we just sort of like muddled through like we were the Chuckle Brothers or something.

Just trying to get it right. Peyton, it's happening we're finally being recognized for being very online it's about damn time i mean it's hard work being this opinionated and correct you're such a leo all the time so if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second then join me hunter harris and me peyton dicks the host of wondery's newest podcast let me say this as beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mass we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to we're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news like it's not a question of if drake got his body done but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of

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Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm guessing that the answer to this will be no, but have you ever regretted that failure in contraception? I'm guessing that the answer to this would be no, but have you ever regretted that failure in contraception? Never, ever, ever. Oh, don't get me wrong. There are times when my son is really annoying and I think, wouldn't it be better? Wasn't it better before I had any children? But no, never, ever, ever. And actually, it is the single greatest push that my life ever had to that failure in contraception, because he made me matter. I felt like I mattered again and that I had to matter and that I had to succeed and I had to do better

because I now mattered in the world. And I think it's really interesting, the idea, oh, the stupid Tory idea that people say about how women have babies to get council houses or to get benefits. I mean, you get like £18.60 a week child benefit. I mean, anyone who's got a child will tell you, you'd have to give me £18,600 per day to make it worth some of the pain that you have to put up with and how hard work it is. I genuinely, when I worked with young, vulnerable women, and I definitely felt it myself,

was the reason that women often go on to have babies is because it makes them matter in the world. It makes them feel like they have a purpose and that they are loved and cherished. So, yeah, that failure for me definitely pushed me on to be the person who I am. So beautiful. I've honestly welled up about three times as you've been talking. But coexisting with your children, you were also pursuing what turned out to be a phenomenally successful career.

And your second failure is your failure to get onto the Home Office fast track. Yeah. Actually, one of the reasons was that I was pregnant was that I failed but I really wanted a job in public policy and government and politics you big weirdo I know yeah what a loser I never thought oh I could be like you know I don't know like a fashion journalist or a movie something cool I always was like, I really like government policy. I'm a loser. And my mum worked very similarly in sort of policy in the Department for Health. But I didn't want to be in front of the camera.

I didn't want to be a politician at this stage. I wanted to be the person who makes the policy rather than the person who has to present it. And I was really specifically interested in home office policy because I had worked with asylum seekers and in the part of Birmingham where I ran sort of a mother and baby group was a huge amount of people from the Congo, from Sierra Leone. It was during the era when the civil wars in Rwanda and Sierra Leone had brought lots and lots of migrants and I saw terrible failings of the way that the Home Office handled asylum seekers

and allowed them to flourish so I really wanted to go and work for the Home Office and so back then you had to do what was when we had dial-up internet that was a failure dial-up internet and I had to do like online tests because I decided I wanted to work for the home office I had to do this like milk round online test civil service tests and I got through like the first three stages and then I had to go to some test center which is so weird isn't it this is such a weird way to get a job it's like becoming an uber driver or something it really is it really is like now that I think they still do it the same. You have to go through this online testing.

And then I went to, yeah, this test centre, I think it was in Solihull. It's probably the place where they now process migrants. There's one of them in Solihull in Birmingham. I had to go and sit a test. And then I couldn't go to the next one that they sent me the thing. You have to go to two tests. I couldn't go because I was pregnant and I had an antenatal appointment. And unfortunately, back then, that was the kind of thing that then just eliminated you from.

That's why you failed. Yeah. Oh, my God. But mind you, at that point, I had started to think, how am I going to cope with this, actually? And how am I going to make this work? And they basically, I mean, now, if that would happen to me now I'll be like are you joking yeah you can't just eliminate me from the process for that reason they weren't ever like well you can't take part because you're pregnant I just said I can't come and they said oh well it was just like the the solid wall of admin and bureaucracy. Yes. In that case. Mind you, that is how the home office works.

But yes, that is exactly what happened. I always thought my dream job would be to work at the home office. So for someone who you took yourself off to sit the 11 plus against your parents' wishes to get into grammar school, who had always aced tests, who saw a really fundamental part of their identity as being the best at everything. Yep.

Was that the first? I was going awful. But was that the first professional knock you'd had? Yes, probably, actually. Yeah, because I'd always just done well at jobs, even like when I was at university or before when I was 16 and I had my first job, I always managed to like rise up to even like working in a bar, you'd become like the bar supervisor very quickly when I was like 18. And I worked at the Royal

Armouries while I was at university. And they moved me from actually, maybe that's not because I was good, maybe because I was rubbish at silver service and kept spilling things on people that they put me in like the events management team rather than people who were actually allowed to work at the events. But yet, it was the first time I think I'd ever been told no you're not good enough for this job this isn't for you is essentially what it was so yeah that was the first time. And when you were told that did you go away and think oh well good that's opened the path for something else is that how you deal with that kind of rejection? At the time I think I thought that's it then that's opened the path for something else? Is that how you deal with that kind of rejection? At the time, I think I thought, that's it then, that's it for that. I'm going to have to come up with a completely different way

of getting around this and getting into working in public policy. And I'm really, really thrilled that I did, in fact, think like that because I think that the pathway that I then took was nowhere near as well paid, which didn't matter to me, being pregnant and having very little money. And also working in the voluntary sector is much less secure, much less secure. And I suppose what I needed and wanted for me and my son then was to have a job for life. The idea of a career, something stable was really important. But yeah,

my attitude when they pushed me away was I'll just find a different route round to do the thing that I want to do. Do you have a plan to become Prime Minister? I don't have a plan like it's written down like Monday, 4.44, Jess enters building. No, I don't have a plan. And I never had a plan to become the prime minister. When I was a kid, I used to think I want to be the prime minister, but I didn't come to parliament to plan to end up at the top. But the reason I came to parliament, the reason that I became a Birmingham city councillor first, the reason I came to parliament is that I will take the influence

up to every level that I need it so I wanted to change policy for victims of domestic abuse and how the refuges got funded by the local council so I got on the local council and became the person who decided on who got what funding and then when I realized that actually the main barrier was that the council didn't have any funding and that the rules about welfare and housing were being made in Westminster. I thought, well, I'm going to have to go up to that level and change that thing. So I'll climb there. So my plan to become the prime minister is, I suppose, in exactly the same way as that I will just keep on climbing until I have the influence to change the things I actually want to change.

So if people want to stop me being the prime minister, they should just listen the first time I ask for something. Don't say no. Then after prime minister, you've listen the first time I ask for something and then don't say no then after prime minister you've got the queen like you could become the queen that would be the logical I mean for you know ordinary girls that's not impossible anymore is it when I was a kid it would have been impossible for somebody who wasn't aristocratic to become the queen but Megan and Kate have shown us that even common girls can become the Queen. 100%. Is it true that you like Jacob Rees-Mogg? I don't like his politics. I don't like anything that he stands for. And I don't like what he's doing to the country. But as a person, he's perfectly polite and, in fact, thoughtful and kind. I know it's shocking, isn't it? I mean, what I like about thoughtful and kind I know it's shocking isn't it I mean what I like

about Jacob and what I think actually is really important and should be spread about much much much more is the idea of disagreeing well we can disagree well and we should all try and do it a bit better and me and Jacob can sit and I can say to him, I mean, I literally once said to him, if you ever get anywhere close to becoming the prime minister of the country, I will burn the building down. And he was like, of course you will, Jess, but you know nothing to worry about. So, and that was about abortion specifically.

And he knows that I feel the way that I do. I know the way that he feels the way that he does. We can disagree well about it without me saying that he deserves I don't know 20 lashes and him saying that you know I'm a horrible slut you know it doesn't we don't have to all agree and we shouldn't constantly try and fight with the people who we don't agree with because it just puts off everybody sensible who's just waiting around for a nice conversation to start so I don't like him like he doesn't come around my house for dinner or anything but I do think that we have an ability to be polite and kind to each other and thoughtful about each other and disagree well. Your final failure is a really profound one and it takes us out of

politics and very much into the real world and it is your failure this is these are your words i'm not going you wrote to me and said my third failure is failure to fix my brother's drug addiction that is that i would say that the greatest failure of my life is my failure to fix my brother's drug addiction, which currently he is, as the status is, that he has fixed it himself until the end of today, and we shall see what happens tomorrow, which is the way we live our lives. I mean, pretty much from when I was 15 until 29, 30,

I tried over and over and over and over again to fix him and failed every single time, sometimes through fault of mine, sometimes through fault of his. I mean, actually, I'm not going to let him off the hook. Always through fault of his, but sometimes exacerbated by fault of mine but it is the reason that I am the person that I am and had the career that I went on to have because when you're 15 and you're keeping a secret that your brother is a drug addict and nobody else knows and you're trying to make sure that you're everywhere that you can be to look after him so people don't find out.

You learn a huge amount of resilience. You learn along the way what is and isn't possible. And I learned to care deeply about people who were in terrible situations and not to think that that was something that happens to other people, that it was something that happens to us. What's the age difference between the two of you? He's 20 months older than me. OK. And he was addicted to heroin? Yeah, I mean, he's been addicted to pretty much everything.

Yes, he was a heroin addict, an alcoholic. He's been on crack cocaine. But also then latterly, the problem was just cocaine. So some of the rhetoric that I hear at the moment about how we should just legalise everything and be all like, let's all just be free and easy, you know, to me, whilst I actually, I think the drugs policy is massively failing and I've watched it fail my family over and over and over again, I feel much less liberal than I think that people would expect me to,

from being from the Labour Party, somebody who admits to have freely taken drugs and to love people who have been drug addicts I don't know that I want everything widely available for my kids and when you said that that you were hiding it from people did that include your parents yeah yeah yeah yeah so I knew that Luke had addiction problems and was getting into trouble and wasn't going to school and things. I mean, my parents knew he wasn't going to school because he kept getting expelled from different schools. But yeah, I think I knew that he was on heroin for a long time before they did, yeah.

And how did you attempt to fix it? Oh, gosh, so many ways. I've taken him in when he's had nowhere to live. I've tried to find treatments for him. I have driven him to psychiatric facilities when he's been having psychotic episodes. I have tried to have things put in place. I have been a friend to him. I have been a foe to him I have tried being the evil one and telling him I never want to see him again I've tried trusting him with my kids and trying to make a level of responsibility change the way he is I mean there is literally nothing that I haven't tried but I mean he's been clean now for two and a half years and he's got two kids of his own that he takes really good responsibility of but you can't change you can't change that for somebody they have to do it for themselves but doesn't mean that for family members that isn't a massive failure I'm certain

my parents feel like they failed that it was their responsibility in the first place I feel like that I feel like he ended up like that because of me because I was bossy and I was always right and I was the one who was clever and shiny and what must that have been like to grow up with? But that's bullshit. I mean, that's just what people do. And my parents will think if only we'd done this a bit more or if only we'd done that a little bit more. That is what that sort of failure does to you. It invades all of your life. But actually, and then going on and working at women's aid with lots of people with substance misuse problems and lots of people with much more even than my brother's harrowing stories about what happened to them in their life the failures that luke taught me that you shouldn't crusade on

that crusading for other people doesn't work and that it can be dangerous and it can put them at risk and it's a burden on them if you are putting all of your eggs in their basket you know often crusading is more about the person doing the crusading than it is about the person that they are helping and I have used that every day in the work that I do is when I worked at Women's Aid and since being a Member of Parliament, that if it is about me getting something or looking good and being the saviour rather than saving the person and the outcome for them and that is best for them, then you shouldn't be doing it.

Is it difficult to love an addict? Well, it's funny, actually. I don. Is it difficult to love an adult? Well, it's funny, actually. I don't find him difficult to love. Not even like he's my brother. He's my brother. So I've got three brothers and we're in two and two. So there's two old ones, two young ones, and he's my one.

So, I mean, I did not look out there. The other two definitely got the better shuffle. So he's my one. I loved him as a kid. We're like 20 months apart. So we're really, really close. And we always have been really, really close. And it's not difficult to love him as a person. But there are times when I wish that he would die and that it would just kill him because that seemed like the only resolution. So, yes, it's very difficult to love somebody like that. And you learn.

I think you have to learn to accept that they might die. And so you have to learn a way to process that. I certainly don't feel like that now. And it's funny now. He's not difficult to love at all. Because the person he is is funny and witty and he's so clever. He's really, really clever, my brother. Really smart and funny and witty and he's so clever. He's really, really clever, my brother.

Really smart and funny and thoughtful. But that person wasn't. And I thought that he damaged himself so much that he would never come back. But he's still really sarcastic and takes the piss out of me constantly and sends me little things about people getting a cake with Marie Curie, not Mariah Carey on top by accident. And can I ask how he got clean? What ended up working for him? I mean, abstinence, NA, AA, the 12-step programme is the only thing.

And my brother has been to the Priory. He has been to Thailand to some, I don't know, with Pete Doherty to some mumbo jumbo, drink some weird drink and you're all going to be absolutely fine. Genuinely with Pete Doherty to some mumbo jumbo, drink some weird drink and you're all going to be absolutely fine. Genuinely with Pete Doherty? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, not like they didn't go together.

Okay, that's what I thought you meant. No, no, no, but he was there when he got there. They didn't go together. They weren't like pals. He was there. I think he was just leaving as Luke had arrived. It worked as well for Pete Doherty as it did for my brother Luke.

Yeah, so he tried everything. He's been on all sorts of different medication, whether it's Supertex, he was on methadone. He's been on all sorts, done literally everything in the book. But for him, just meetings, the fellowship is the only thing that ever worked. And he goes to meetings every day. This is a lifestyle, this is a job staying clean so he goes to CA meetings so cocaine anonymous I think which he set up a couple in our local area specifically I think just so he could go to one maybe there wasn't one on a Tuesday he thought I need one every day so yeah he goes to meetings pretty

much daily and he has a sponsor and all of that jazz that's the only thing that's worked and are you aware then because of your upbringing and because of these experiences that there could have been another Jess Phillips who took a very different route from the one that this one took yeah I am always aware of that I think of myself now like working in the home office I would never have been able to be political actually because it politically restricts you being a civil servant my mum said I don't know why you want to be a civil servant you'd be the worst civil servant the world has ever known because you're really like not very discreet and you also like you have to just say no to people when you're a civil

servant your whole job is just saying no and you're a person who likes to say yes to things so yeah I think of myself like being in the civil service and just busying myself away on a project about asylum seekers I don't know whether I'd be happier or not lots of things in my life would be easier wouldn't they actually do you also think of yourself as a single mother if the relationship with Tom hadn't worked out eating chickpea curry on £18.60 a week well yeah yeah I mean being a single mom no I've never I never ever I have to say the one thing in my life that is completely and utterly non-negotiable actually and I don't ever think that there was an alternative and I don't believe in fate or anything in fact I lectured my son yesterday on believing in fate being stupid is Tom I don't believe in fate or anything. In fact, I lectured my son yesterday on believing in fate, being stupid. It's Tom.

I don't think there is another world where I don't exist with Tom. I mean, some days, I really wish that there were days when I didn't exist with him. There's no life without him. What a lovely tribute. He would be like, oh, Jess is such a knob. I hope he listens to this because it will bring him home to him once again. What a fantastic, inspiring, brave and beautiful woman his wife is.

Thank you so, so much for coming on How To Fail and for so engaging with the idea of this podcast. Thank you so much, Jess Phillips. I vote for you as prime minister. Thanks so much. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.