YouSaid · the spoken record

Nimco Ali

lines on the record: 47
first: 2022-05-20
most recent: 2022-05-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Oh, yeah. That's quite funny the fact that I'm not a white man that went to Eton. No, do you know what I'm privileged in the position that I stand? And I think a lot of that comes from my kind of upbringing and the privilege I carry as an African woman who's been able to be raised with a knowledge of her background and everything else. I think, like, you know, I would have definitely done it, but I would have worked smarter, not as hard because it is actually exhausting trying to keep everyone happy.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not really that awkward, I think. It's just the whole point, it's the fact that I think we both love and respect each other in that kind of sense. And I'm actually, I don't necessarily disagree with him or his kind of policies, but it's just the fact that sometimes the things that you care about have to take a back burner to other things. And ultimately, that means that you just don't give up, but you just keep pushing it along.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think one of the things that I've learned in politics, and again, this is why I don't think I should ever go into politics, is sometimes that you have to kind of put things to the back burner in order for other things to kind of win. So I'm still hopeful because it's not something I'm going to give up the public sexual harassment and us doing more commitments on the fact that actually protecting women in public spaces will become law. The whole point is that you can't do certain things in a pub at work, but you can do them the high street. We need some consistency in that kind of conversation. And I do think that there are enough good people in government that will be able to push that.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Honest to God, if I'm on hand on heart, I do. I actually, if it comes down to the brick, I do think that Boris is a man that actually believes in the like, you know, the Great Britain agenda, the global Britain agenda able to kind of deliver that. But I understand things like Brexit end up bugging things like that.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've kind of seen the fact that 90% of Afghanistan's population are starving, the fact that we've actually just ignored the Taliban and the way that they're treating women. And I think we were completely wrong in the way that we cut and run. And yes, America did what it did, but ultimately I think we should have held ourselves to high standard of respect and a duty of care to the people that we were basically working with for almost 20 years.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For me, actually, I think I'm more interested in the fact that we're failing and we're falling behind in being a global leader, that we could be. So, for example, things that really should be on the forefront of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, which is basically our civil war at the moment, droughts in the Horn of Africa, and other things that really should be taking president at the moment and not being talked about. So I don't think a lot of the departments that could be doing great work are actually falling behind.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a very interesting space to be in, and I think the greaters of friends are those that hold you accountable, that hold the mirror to you. So, you know, I can, like I said, I can kind of respect people but not necessarily agree with them wholeheartedly.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, because the reason why I want to do things the right way because the things I care about have to be fundamental and have to be beyond repreaching in the sense that I'm dealing with women's lives. And I don't want this to be a thing of, oh, because she was friends with so-and-so, it happened. I want it to happen because this is what our society believes and this is what we need to do. And I think that's what really irritates me when people kind of think that I get things done or do all these things just because of the people that I know, I work, I work hard and ultimately whether Boris stays or goes or whatever happens, I want to be able to make sure that there are civil servants, there are ministers and there are people that are in this country that continue the work that I care about.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, no, no. I've just read the Constitution of this country, the sum I written, Constitution of this country. And the whole, I think the thing that people don't necessarily understand about me is the fact that I am a product of civil war, so I know how when you don't respect the due process of a country, things can actually kind of fall apart. So I would never kind of step outside of my remit as being a friend or when I'm in a political space or in a workspace who'll be in that kind of space. And for me, ethics and those kind of principles really matter to me.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you know what annoys me is the fact of the same people that were writing asking for questions to be answered were the same people that were inboxing me saying I know it's within the rules. So sometimes actually just becomes a spectacle. It was like within the rules that I was a single person in London. I spent 18 months of my lockdown on my own and I still live on my own. So it was allowed in tier four in order for a single person to be able to join in a child care bubble. But you know what? It was my friend. I was grateful to be able to not spend because my birth is always on the 27th of December. So I was grateful not to spend time alone after spending almost a year in lockdown on my own.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's an unfair way to live in terms of when you're scrutinized just for being who you are in that kind of sense. But I think the way that Carrie has dealt with it has been incredible.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%, and I think, like, you know, I'm not sure I've ever met a couple that doesn't actually have a conversation and talk about things, but I think you do need to be able to have a console in your relationship and be able to talk through. But she's not there making decisions. That's the capitalism, that's the Prime Minister.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But ask questions about her role, whether she's working with the Aspira Foundation or whether she's working with Bloomberg or whatever the work that she's doing. I think that's like, you know, conversations that you can legitimately have. But I think to infer that the fact that because she's the Prime Minister's wife, she's some kind of like, you know, a driving force between policy and those things. I think that a lot of that comes from sexism.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, like me, she respects due process and democracy, so I think in terms of me saying power, I'm talking about her campaigning on animal rights and on climate and the whole point when she led the whole campaign around plastic. So this is a person that is actually renowned and able to do things in her own rights. I think it's actually quite sexy to reduce her to the wife of the prime minister when she”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but there's a lot of insecure men around in this world. So the fact that the first thing that they do is when they see a woman of power is that they push back. So there's a lot of people out there that fear young people and or young women specifically that end up having power and having the ability to be able to express things that they believe in.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know what it's horrific, and to also understand, like, you know, the fact that it's a young woman, just like, you know, a new mother and in a position where she's not elected her husband is and she just happens to love somebody that's in power. I think it's like, you know, it's incredibly painful to watch anybody that you care about and suffer like that.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Known as the black cap 100 women. Yeah, so the fact that she waved their anonymity and spoke as passion as she did and made sure that a dangerous mind is not behind bars and doesn't abuse other women. I think that is something that that was for me. That was one of the most incredible things that kind of kicked off our friendship.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I completely respect anybody that uses something that happens to them in order to be selfless and be able to speak up and be able to change the lives of other women”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's actually quite embarrassing that no senior government person has actually stood out like the Canadians have and said that the right to an abortion is a fundamental human right. Canada has said that other G7 leading countries or people have actually within those governments have said it and the reality is that the far right which actually holds the conversation around abortions and has the evangelicals have thought to themselves that they've won in America so they're now on our doorstep. We do actually have a lot of people within this government and other like you know within parliament actually don't believe in women's right to access to free abortions.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, I really wanted him to become Prime Minister, so I was happy to do that because he did and he does believe in gender equality. And I think that's one of the, you know what, sitting down with people and getting to know them personally, you get to know what makes them tick and what not. Like, for example, I wouldn't write that kind of stuff for Jacob Reese Mogg because I don't think he's a feminist. I don't think he believes in the basic human rights that women are meant to uphold. And it kind of scares me that if there is a leadership, again, that there will be people who are in the forefront like Jeremy Hunt, for example, who doesn't believe in access to abortion to 24 weeks. He wants to bring that. He's been open about bringing that down to 12 weeks. So for me, it's like it is about protecting fundamental things that I care about.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it's good. Do you know what? Like, you know, the Conservative Party, when I found them post-blit, it was a very interesting space for young women, young people like myself to be in. I think I actually just found more commonality with...”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that was the one, but I was just saying it wasn't signed by Joe Cox itself. Like, you know, the fact that I didn't want to take your name”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I did, but that letter only was basically full of vile races kind of language and it was threatening to harm me. No, it wasn't signed. I don't think at the time.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But this is what I mean. Imagine if I stood for a Conservative Party, I had threats, what kind of made those threats more painful was they became legitimized because the left and the Labour Party specifically Wondering why the hell am I standing?”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. It's always said that to me, but this is the thing that I say about the way that I do politics it's the fact that I will work with anybody in power when it comes to personal service. It's about voting for people and dating. Like I'm not going to date people or vote for people I don't agree with, but if they're in power, I'm going to work with them. And I think it's like, you know, I don't have the privilege and I'm not that egotistical to think that I'm going to wait until somebody that I politically agree with can actually make changes. Like, for example, the UN spent 30 years trying to ban FGM in Sudan. I started to work with Mike Pompeo. It was done within six months. So the reality is that a broken clock can be right twice a day and I found that many times in people that I don't politically agree with.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%, and one of the things that he did is that he actually set up violence against women and girls board, which was like, you know, it was bipartisan. There was people that were from the Labour Party on that campaign and everything else. I think what he does do very well is that he does delegate and have pee people that are able to understand.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that was the message I kind of got back. And it was this. And again, it was being taken back to when I was a child where community and votes came before my well-being and the well-being of girls that looked like me.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what, at the time, and I think this is one of the things that's been quite successful for him as a campaigner, is the fact that I wasn't seeing him in his political kind of element. I was seeing him as somebody that was going to go into power and be able to kind of make change. I wasn't really actually expecting him to win. I thought Ken Livingston was going to win at the time. And I'd written to Ken Livingston and he replied back saying, we're going to see how this plays with the mosques, how this plays out with the mosques was the actual question. And I thought.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Potoni High Streets. I didn't shout at him, I actually ran after him because I was actually kind of confused why he was walking down Putney High Street, but that's when he was running for the Mayor of London. You know, I just thought I said, oh, can I just talk to you about FGM? And he was quite horrified that he was still going on. And then he gave me his contact details.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Women and girls' rights. 100%, and I think we kind of look at the continent of Africa in isolation. We talk about poverty, we talk about all these things, but poverty is created by things like FGM child marriage and polygamy and all these things which women are not able to have choices in.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%, and one of the things is this is why the Five Foundation, which is now a global partnership to NFGM, which I work on, was about actually giving women specifically on the content of Africa the ability to be able to be economically empowered and separate. As wealthy as my family might have been, my mother was still a wife to a man who held the money and held the power. So the way that I was meant to be raised in that kind of cultural context meant that FGM had to be part of that.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of you used to word eradicate because it sounds like a virus. This is a purposeful act where you have to take several steps in order to kind of do that. So we use and more kind of precisely. No, 100%. I think if I was seven years old today, I would not have had FGM because my mother would have been supported in the sense that she knew it was a crime if I was 11 and I turned up at a hospital, there would be child protection people that would come in. So I do think that girls are protecting more. At the moment, I have an 11-year-old niece and I look her through sometimes with pride and with envy at the same time that the issue that almost killed me when I was her age is something that's non-existent to her. So I think within a generation we can change the lives of women and girls in this country.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. And the whole point is that my race and my community was put before my humanity and my, yeah, basically and my childhood to a certain extent.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, literally, it was literally that with that, but I think my most kind of Upsetting a moment that that was when I was 11 and I ended up having the seizure in the middle of, well, I fainted in the middle of school because of my kidneys failing. I remember waking up in the hospital and I still vividly remember this nurse who had like incredibly curly ginger hair. And I was thinking, well, you've actually seen my anatomy, so you must be able to tell me what's wrong. And she just was just smiling at me. So I just smiled back thinking, okay, this is really bizarre because you have actually physically seen my anatomy and you know that there was something that happened to me. So can you at least put that into context? So again, I think there was a level of fear that was created by this political correctness of not asking what brown people do because it was racist to racist to care about me, but actually ironically it was actually racist not to care about me.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you know what? I understand now because of the way that we're putting girls into cultural cul-de-sacs and all these other kind of conversations. She wanted to normalize it for me in order for me to feel okay with it because I don't think there's anything that she could do. She thought it was a celebration. I'm not, you know what? I'm just being fair to her. This was in the 80s. I'm not sure if she 100% knew what the gravity of the FG.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They did almost die yet, but I'm Because I had a very invasive form of FGM, which is called infibillation, and it's very common in the Horn of Africa, which ended up leading to me having near kidney failure.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was this weird thing, and what's really interesting is the fact that I don't actually equate it with pain after the first few kind of weeks of having it initially until obviously I had major complications afterwards. So I didn't actually say.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was just before it happened. I was seven at the time, and we were in Djibouti having just left Somaliland where the civil war had broken out and we were on our way back to Manchester. So we were waiting for visas and things to kind of clear. So there was a conversation around the FGM, but I didn't necessarily know the realities of what it was. And for me, I think it wasn't necessarily, I didn't know what the act was going to entail, but when the cutter came to the house, I was very much taken aback by the way that she looked. Ironically, she looked quite similar to I said once to one of those dementors in Harry Potter. She was dressed in black and it was stories that the nannies and others used to tell us about if we misbehave, there was going to be these people that would do these things. So yeah, it was just, it was ultimately just somebody that I felt a bit uncomfortable.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's a lot closer than that. So I'm obviously a fait with how to avoid the question. So that's like, you know, to that point. So you can take from my silence as to whoever you want to put. But I can just say that the Home Secretary and other people within the Home Office are very much behind.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm still going to have the argument so the whole point. I think that's my key thing about being an independent advisor. I think that we are actually corroding society and we are allowing young women to be subjected to lived experiences which are going to have a massive detriment to their health on a day-to-day basis.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Non-necessarily having the police get involved because the whole thing is that this behavior does escalate. It is about the fact that people fearing that they might get fined just as much as they do”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Other people and cabinet responsibility is a thing. So I do think that there is at times a very masculine conversation on how government and institutions work. So we need to be able to address that.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. I think there are more culture changes that need to happen. And for me, I would specifically love public sexual harassment to become a crime. But that is something that is, again, one of the things that I've seen is that a department and a secretary of state care have an opinion and then there can be other things that kind of push back. So Cabinet.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we've got the violence against women and girls strategy, which was published late last year, and now we've got the domestic abuse strategy that's also coming through as well. And there's real commitment in those kind of conversations. So we've got things like spiking that are going to be looked at in terms of a new legislation for spiking through the violence against women and girls strategy. We banned child marriage. So the UK now has an age of 18 in order for girls or boys to be married, homeoplasty, which is where you basically re-virginize women, which was happening indiscriminately in this country, it's been banned virginity testing has been banned, non-fatal strangulation is going to be something that's going to be charged. And also one of the key things is that this defense of rough sex. So I think there are a lot of technical things that women within the violence against women and girls sector have been fighting for that I come in. What about the”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Only two people that are disingenuous. So the whole point is having been in the sector for almost a decade or actually beyond a decade, almost 11 years of fighting to end female genital mutilation and other forms of violence. I think those that want to be able to do the job in order to end violence against women and girls actually know what my credentials are.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As somebody that has kind of fought my way in order to have a voice and actually really believes in integrity and also democracy is something that I've worked for and it's something that the Home Secretary when she said that she was going to do a violence against women and girls strategy came to me with and then I said I would be more than happy to do that because ironically I do have this kind of space where I can talk to the sector in terms of the violence against women and girls sector who don't actually feel that comfortable with talking to a conservative party and then also we're talking to ministers. So I see myself as a kind of a bridge between power and those with purpose.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think nothing's really changed in that kind of instance. It's the fact that I still see these people that can actually help. So whether I'm sitting around the table with them or chasing them down the street, I think they're quite similar in that sense. But I will actually correct you. I'm appointed by Pritty Patel and not the Prime Minister.”
2022-05-20 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Nimco Ali One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source