about a0 million americans have already cast their ballots. now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than an interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking about what shapes theirs. in a new cabinet dominated by public schoolboys and oxbridge graduates, the new education secretary stands out. gillian keegan s old school, a comprehensive in knowsley called st augustine s, was nicknamed st disgusting before it was shut down a couple of years after she left. like most kids at her school, gillian left at the age of 16 and went to be an apprentice at a carfactory. now, that was a springboard, as we ll hear, for a very successful business career. she went on to become the commercial director at mastercard, chief marketing officer at a big travel firm called travelport. her boss now, rishi sunak, says a good education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet when it comes to making
was nicknamed st disgusting before it was shut down a couple of years after she left. like most kids at her school, gillian left at the age of 16 and went to be an apprentice at a car factory. now, that was a springboard, as we ll hear, for a very successful business career. she went on to become the commercial director at mastercard, chief marketing officer at a big travel firm called travelport. her boss, now, rishi sunak, says a good education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet when it comes to making people s lives better. gillian keegan, welcome to political thinking. thank you for having me. now, just a month ago, i interviewed the new education secretary, kit malthouse, here on political thinking. and my first question was something along the lines of what s it like being the fourth education secretary in five months? you re now the fifth education secretary in six months. it s not good enough, is it? well, you can t get too much education, can you? but, i
and also donald trump all take their campaigning to pennsylvania. and thousands gather in seoul to remember the halloween crush victims many are demanding the president resign. you are watching bbc news. now, politicalthinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than an interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking about what shapes theirs. in a new cabinet dominated by public schoolboys and oxbridge graduates, the new education secretary stands out. gillian keegan s old school, a comprehensive in knowsley called st augustine s, was nicknamed st disgusting before it was shut down a couple of years after she left. like most kids at her school, gillian left at the age of 16 and went to be an apprentice at a car factory. now, that was a springboard as we ll hear for a very successful business career. she went on to be the commercial director at mastercard, chief marketing officer at a big travel firm called trave
even in politics, which i never thought of being a politician at all, i never thought of being an mp. but even when i first started, ifelt like my life had kind of been leading to this point without me knowing. and certainly, education secretary, if you could choose one thing, it would be education secretary, not only going to a failing comprehensive school in knowsley for the full five years and getting really in my dna. people say about levelling up, about recognising that talent is everywhere but opportunity isn t i lived that and i thoroughly and fully believe it. and i know because i see the faces of all the people who were there, i still see them. all my friends are mostly still in knowsley. we ll talk about the good bits in a second, but first of all, the bad. why was it nicknamed st disgusting? 0h, they werejust jealous, i m sure. no, i don t know. was it really poor? there were some ten comprehensive schools in knowsley. they were all failing. they were all inadequate. they
the foreign office as well when i was briefly there over the summer. you think that s still true? i do, i do. i was only in the foreign office recently. so, there we are, very successful making, i imagine, quite a lot of money as well. yes. what on earth gets into your mind to think, i know what i ll do later in life is i m going to go into politics? well, the first thing that happened on thatjourney was i came back from madrid in 2009 to live back in the uk, and by that point i wasn t bored of business, i d loved it, but i thought, you know, we re only here for a short time in this world and i could get a different experience, something completely different. so it opened my mind. but i still didn t come to politics until i met baroness annejenkin in a theatre randomly, and she was with somebody i knew. now she s a conservative peer. yeah. who i think it s fair to say, set herself up. that was then supported to get more women through the conservative party into senior positions. she be