YouSaid · the spoken record

Shabana Mahmood

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56

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2024-02-08

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2024-02-08

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1. “I was no longer just a Muslim because my parents were Muslim, but I'm a Muslim for myself because my conscience calls me to God, not my upbringing alone. And that will always be on a personal level, something that it means the most to me of anything else”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “I don't think it was right then and it's definitely not right now. Some of us do God and I was joke with people don't let the lack of a headscarf fool you. I am in the God squad brigade. I think people assume, though, that that means you're trying to impose your faith on other people and that's never something I've sought to do. You know, religion is a personal calling, my conscience that I have for myself calls me to God. But I absolutely respect the freedom of belief for everybody else, including those who don't believe in God. I often joke, I'll pray for you. But, you know, it's something I value and it's something I respect and I love living in a country that has such diversity, not just of identity, but of thought and belief within it. But for me personally, you know, I was raised by Muslim parents, but I feel like I properly grew up when I knew in my heart, in my soul, that”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Show that these things I have been granted and given, I can use for good for other people, it shapes my political disposition, I suppose.”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “My faith is. Most important thing in my life, it's deeply personal, it affects my, I think it affects my disposition in politics rather than the position I take on particular issues. So I don't really see a connection between day-to-day politics and policy and faith specifically, but faith shapes my disposition. I was brought up to believe Your life is a gift and it's also a test from God. If you are if you've been lucky and privileged, a desire of being to have a great education, to be able to do a really amazing job, you don't just sit back and think, oh, great for me, lovely, I want a bit of a life lottery there. You have a duty to, you have to account for it. You have to say what you did with it before God. And that's really important. And that's what caused me to public service. That's how I feel I am trying to.”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Look, I'm not going to be back seat driven by anybody. I'm going to do my job to the best of my ability. But I relish having a boss that gets it as well and who knows the territory and we are aligned on all of the fundamentals we care a lot about the rule of law, putting victims at the heart of the system. You know, the fundamental foundational principles we are aligned upon, the rest is politics.”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “I think it's a sign of how seriously he takes the job. And he's had a life and a career before politics, and that has obviously shaped him. Unlike him, I was a barrister for a relatively short period, so I've been a politician a lot longer than I was a practising barrister. And it's a flip side of that for him”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Yes I think that's a fair description. He takes in a lot of information quite quickly which is a skill a lot of lawyers have and then he thinks quite methodically about the problem and what he thinks the solution needs to be.”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Justice Secretary Oh, well, I talent on knowing more than me, I think I can give a good account of myself. But yeah, no, sure, of course. You know, he has an affinity for this area of policy. He was a public servant in this area of policy.”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “I'd like to meet these people that brief these things anonymously. I ran that campaign. We didn't talk about it as an instrumental transactional manifesto and always worry about the attacks. No, no, no. What I'm saying is what it contains has to be credible, affordable, deliverable. People have to believe because there's such low trust in politicians that the things you're saying you're going to do can actually be done. They've got to believe in the plan that you have. So it's not about trying to preempt somebody else's campaign. I don't care about the Tory campaign. That's their problem. It's their business. What I care about is that what Labor is saying is credible, affordable, deliverable, and that the public can believe in it, be persuaded by it, vote for it, and hopefully give us the chance to serve in government.”

   2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “No, no, no. You have to have a core set of values that you believe in, and people have to understand where you're coming from and the sort of country that you want Britain to be. But you also have to be realistic with them about what you can achieve. It's a journey, right? You can't do everything on day one. You've got to be able to persuade people of the course, the track that you want to put the country on, and then also be able to be honest. I think people appreciate honesty, actually. I think you're right. What I have heard from voters, and I've been on many doors in the last few years talking to voters, they want honesty. They want practicality. They also want to know, you know, if we give the keys to the country to you, what sort of country is it going to be? And I don't pretend Kir doesn't pretend that us making the case for that is job done nowhere near, we've still got a big job to do, and that's what we've all got to focus on.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “I think actually I find it depressing that people have to look at a change of position as if it's somehow shameful or de facto a sign of something negative. I think you have to make the case to the country. And I don't take anything for granted. We still have a case to make to the country. When I ran the campaign, I was in the no complacency brigade because I know that we still have voters to convince and to bring over to the red column, as it were. And that is a process. And there's ups and downs in it, but you never stop making the case.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Well, I think he is addressing it. I think you have to put it in the context of the scale of the defeat that we had in 2019. Nobody could have imagined that we would be in the position that we're in today, but also the sheer amount of work that Keir himself has had to do as leader to just get us back on the pitch, to be able to make an argument without being laughed at and not taken very seriously. So you told John a way of...”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Think we don't want to be making promises that are not deliverable because the circumstances have changed. And I think we have lived through a period of huge political turbulence. I think people forget the economy crashed when Liz Truss had a short period as Prime Minister. People felt that in their household incomes and that changed both the economic reality and also the political reality that we would face if we were to win a general election. And when you're faced with a changing situation, you either stick to everything you said before the situation changed and try and say, well, this means I don't change and I'm firm on my course. But then you're ultimately proven wrong because you can't do the thing you said you were going to do because the reality has changed or you level with people, you're honest with them and you say what you can still do and what you want to deliver and try and show up.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “You can cut it, slice it anywhere you want. The only way to realise the hopes and aspirations of both of the peoples of this region to let their children flourish in a land of safety and security is a two-state solution.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Look, it's obviously an extremely challenging environment in which to make the case for a two-state solution. And what we lack at the moment, I think, are partners for peace. So you have on the one hand Hamas who envisaged the destruction of nine million people in Israel and you have, you know, frankly the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruling it out as well. What I would say is neither of these are partners for peace as things stand and we have to urgently find partners for peace because a one-state solution does not make the people of Israel safe. It actually condemns them to insecurity and concerns for their safety in perpetuity. And it is an outrage to adopt a position that says that the people of Israel can have self-determination but the people of Palestine cannot. That is not acceptable and we cannot allow the continued degradation and denigration of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “It is now, and actually David Cameron was Prime Minister in 2014 when under Ed Miliband we adopted our state recognition policy for the Palestinian people and David Cameron was dead against it. So over the years, and I guess from negotiations that have been taking part as a result of this conflict, he's moved on to our position. I think the broadest range of support for the position of recognition of a Palestinian state as a recognition of their inalienable right to self-determination, a right of theirs to be realised that is not in the gift of their neighbour or in the control of their neighbour, I think it's important actually now that in the Tory party, in the Labour Party,”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “I think David Cameron moved on to a territory that had been Labour Party policy for a long time. What I found particularly”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “While I cautioned against people who present themselves as community leaders my whole political experience, my whole political life, I fought against badging old people as one and assuming that one or two self-appointed individuals speak for a whole, that is not true, it's not fair. It does not reflect the reality for my faith community or anybody else either.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Reject that entirely. Royal electoral politics rubs up against raw and true politics itself and what is necessary for a democracy. That analysis, I think, is wrong on the facts, frankly, but also it's wrong both morally and politically. We are and have always been a party that seeks to bring our country together. I take pride in the fact that we can take votes in the north of the country, in the south and everywhere in between, and from every community. When I ran the campaign for two years, you know, we were not writing off a single community. I'm just as interested in getting votes from British Jews, British Muslims, British Hindus, British, none of the above, you know, everybody. And that's the campaign I ran that is still the ethos of the campaign.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “I think that there has been a sense of a loss of trust and I think that that needs to be rebuilt again that's something that we are all very cognizant of and want to make sure we put that right. We aspire to be a party that can get votes from every part of our country and every community in our country. That has always been the labour way and that is still the labour way.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “I won't comment on those sorts of stories. I think that our position, if we can get a hearing about what our position is, I think our position is strong and it's in line with not just calls from the British Muslim community, but from people across our community of every community.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “suggest that it's not a legitimate thing to do it has power it can try and create moral and political pressure to try and bring a ceasefire about but i think if you're in the actual government or if you're in the shadow government what you actually have to grapple with and think about is how you deliver a ceasefire and that is a delicate difficult diplomatic process and i felt that that is what we needed to get behind”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “I wanted a ceasefire then. I want to cease fire now. I think it's. It's impossible to look at footage of dead children being pulled from the rubble knowing that they were crying out and nobody could get to them and not want this nightmare to stop, not want the fighting to stop. The death toll, I think, speaks for itself, the sheer number of children, 11,000 children have died in Gaza. I think that tells its own story. So you can call it a ceasefire or a truce. You can use the words permanent or sustainable or immediate. In the end, what you're describing is a desire to see the fighting stop. And that is a desire I and millions of people share and believe in. The question is not so much, do you just call for it, but how you actually deliver one? And I wish it were possible simply by calling for it that you could immediately deliver one. I think calling for something has power by the way. I don't want to...”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Yes, the way we conduct politics has changed. Just when I was elected in 2010, I feel like that was ancient history sometimes because, you know, the ability to spread messaging, sometimes accurately, sometimes disinformation through social media networks. And actually not just the social media that we can see and follow, like Facebook or TikTok or whatever, but actually WhatsApp, which is a much more hidden medium because it just passes naturally between people has had a huge impact on politics generally on society more widely as well. And in the 14 years I've been a working politician, it's unrecognizable to me, the arena in which we now have to prosecute our politics.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Not a good moment, and Kier, of course, then did go on to clarify his comments. I think miscommunications in politics do happen. It's important to offer that clarification. It was necessary because it was widely seen by millions of people had caused a huge amount of anguish. He put the record straight.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “Well, I'm not going to lift the veil on private discussions in shadow cabinet. But I think that's appropriate. No, and there's no getting away from the fact it is true objectively. And on every other measure, that was...”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Yes, of course. At the top end of politics in a shadow cabinet or in a cabinet, there has to be room, I think, both for honest conversations, but then also it is incredibly important to have a sense of collective responsibility that matters both in government and in opposition, as well as a doctrine I believe in. I don't think that collective responsibility requires everybody's neurons in their brain to find exactly the same way always. I think diversity of thought and perspective”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “I think the economic differences, the approach to politics, I think we had a very different view. He was somebody that very much believed his mandate came from the membership alone. I think the mandate from the membership is important, but it's not exclusive. You're representatives of a wider group of people in a parliamentary democracy. We just had differences about how politics operates, how politicians have to show leadership. We had differences on the economy and other policy issues. I just felt that the whole of that project, I could not in all conscience be a serving member and say the direct opposite of what I think. Everybody makes compromises in politics. You have to. That's how politics works. But I've felt that that compromise would mean every day saying the direct opposite of what I think needs to happen. And I didn't think that was going to work out well for anyone.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “I hadn't really thought about it, but my instinctive answer I think just kind of captured it. I just said to him that I'd be miserable, I'd make him miserable, and it probably was better for both of us that I don't serve. And I just knew that the differences were too big. And having been on a rival campaign, I could see that the differences were going to be very big between us. And I just didn't feel like I could do it, or that was fair to either of us.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “I sat it out in terms of front bench politics. Jeremy called me after the election. I'd just been running Yvett's campaign. I was co-chair of that leadership campaign. Yvette Cooper. Yvette Cooper's campaign. And I had a call and he offered me a position in the Charlie Cabinet. I think he wanted me to keep going with the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury role.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “No, no, no, no. The next time I saw him, he was a backbench Tory MP. It was 2015. I was leading for us from the dispatch box because for that short period I was Shadow Chief Secretary and it was an opposition day debate. And he sort of stood up and made an intervention on me. I was like, oh my God, it's Rishi Sun.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “He was a bit quieter at college, but he was definitely part of this sort of fabled, we used to tease them, like this fabled generation of PPE students that were all going to get the top starred first at Oxford. And he was doing very well academically. So he was amongst a group of students that were considered to be, you know, going to do really well in life. And so I sort of assumed that. I wouldn't have said I would have seen him becoming prime minister necessarily on the horizon.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “No, no, no. I did not do that, but I did very much say we need to come together and have a president like me. And I had him in my yes column. Funnily enough, some months ago when this story first sort of surfaced, an independent witness presented themselves, a fellow student, same year as Rishi Sunak, who voted for me alongside Rishi Sunak and always said, if you need the independent witness, if the Prime Minister is denying it, I'm here to prove otherwise. Anyway, it's between the ballot box and Rishisunak and his god, but I'm pretty sure he voted for me.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “The geek motor is there for me, yes. I was up against some very popular candidates in that election and I thought the quiet geek is going to win the day. That was my entire election strategy back then.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “Yes. JCOP, that's right. That's right. Rishisunak was on my target list of voters in that election. I was mobilizing the Geek Vote and he and I were both very firmly of the Geek Extraction at College. And I had him down in my yes column. I'm pretty sure he voted for me.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “Exactly. And that happened to me at Oxford. It happened to me back home in Birmingham. Suddenly those questions about who you are and what Islam means and how Muslims practice their faith just all had an edge and there was this sense of being held accountable for events taking place hundreds of miles away by people we've never met and have nothing to do with but somehow we are now all labeled as the same. It was that felt like a bit of a slap really and it felt like a real shock to the system. And that was the first time I think even though I'd faced racism before the first time I got called a packy was in the school playground at junior school I was maybe eight years old I'd not heard the word before you know all of those other previous experiences as horrible as they might have been just didn't feel as bad as what happened after 9-11.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “A mostly curiosity and my experience was people never asked with malicious intent, but with a huge lack of knowledge. And, you know, there's a, you sort of felt like you have to kind of teach about a people, but I mean, today we're, what, nearly 2 billion, 2 billion of the world's population, something like that is Muslim. It's very hard to get across to people the distinctions, the variations and the differences between the community as well as some of the things that obviously would apply to any one of us.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “I mean, I didn't ask for it, but when you are the only one of your kind in a room, it sort of, you suddenly, you know, you're alive to it immediately.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “Oh, I think I felt like a bit of an alien. I felt really different. Birmingham is a very diverse city. We actually lived in Saudi Arabia for the very early part of my life because of my dad's job. And when we returned to the UK, I was in a junior school where there was only one other black student who was my best friend at school and my twin brother, who's the only other Asian. So I got very used to thinking there's not very many of us here and that was different and something to get used to. My secondary school actually was full of people that looked just like me. So it was a totally different. It was the absolute flip side of that experience. But when I got to Oxford, it was my first ever experience in life where for some of the people I met, I was literally the first Muslim that they had ever met. And it occurred to me that for those people, everything they know about Muslims will come from me. And as an 18-19-year-old, honestly, I felt that as extreme pressure. I thought that was a real burden.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “Yeah, he used to joke with it. I used to moan all the time because I love that high tech till, but he basically said, you know, it's character building. And that was that. It was very much my, the attitude of my parents was usually just have to get up and keep going.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “You definitely do You definitely do. You learn a lot about people. I always felt like we were a bit of a social service as much as a corner shop. But, you know, we had our shop. We had a till that we inherited from the previous owners of the shop. And that was nicked in both a shoplifting or theft incident and also with a bit of racial abuse thrown in for good measure. So my dad replaced that till, bought a brand new one. It was very high tech. It was great. And then within days that was nicked as well. And my dad was like, I am not wasting money on another till. And so he just refused to buy another one. So we had a money tray that was kept under the counter. And my mental mad scot very, very good”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “No, no, yes. We grew up in a corner shop, and my mum used to run the shop. You know, we would help out after school and at weekends. And I always joke with my parents, I really should have stuck up for my rights and demanded a fair rate of pay. I'd have probably got a clip around my ear for my efforts. But I did grow up helping out. And, you know, it was challenging. It was a very long hour as my dad still worked full-time as a civil engineer. My mum was raising the four of us. She would have to close the shop for 10 or 15 minutes throughout the day to do a bit of housework. She often did her ironing by the till, you know.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Yes, I feel like politics has always been part of my life. It wasn't not in the context of something I wanted to do. My livestream was to be Kavanaugh QC. I wanted to be a barrister. That was my thing. But politics was something that was normal in our household. My dad in particular was very involved with the local Labour Party. And for quite a long time, actually, almost a decade, he was the chair of the Birmingham Labour Party. And he is someone who many people in our local community where we live often turn to for resolution of personal disputes. He's seen as a bit of an honest broker.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Important distinction. I won't get into sort of partition politics as it were. Talking of controversial international stories. That's a whole other podcast series, but we are Kashmirian origin, but we find ourselves in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “I don't find myself in the same position that Mike has found himself in. I guess I'm still in the place where I come out fighting. I'm not going to give in to bullying and intimidation. And I'm going to keep making the case for what I believe in, but also making the case that in this country we are all stronger if our different communities with a lot of respect for their differences can still find a way to get along.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Guess almost invasion that you can't move around as safely and securely as you need to, that is very challenging. I hope there's a way of getting back to something like normality, but I fear that in this sort of era with social media, the ability to amplify extremism so readily, it might not come back.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “I am afraid Shockingly large number of members of parliament that is now daily life. I fear that there's no going back to the status quo ante, as it were, that there's no getting back that sense of security and being able to go about your daily business, to be in your communities. You know, one of the great things about having a constituency link as members of parliament, as we do in our democracy, is that local link. I'm very rooted in my own community. It's the place I'm from. It's quite a privilege in politics. It doesn't happen very much that you get to represent the place you grew up in, you live in, that you call home. The sense of”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “This war, this cause for their own ends, and it's completely unacceptable. Politicians have to be able to make decisions and do their job properly.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “I was heartbroken reading his statement. We all have families. We are all human beings. We all have places of sanctuary and safety. And it's very difficult as working politicians if you feel like you can't do your job because your security situation has taken a turn for the worse and also if your family are affected. I mean on a human level I felt nothing but heartbreak for the situation he's found himself in and I know that that is not unique to him. Unfortunately there are many members of parliament I think who have in the last few months faced really quite severe security challenges. It's completely unacceptable and the people that are doing that, they are not people that are interested in a peaceful resolution. They are not people that really have the best interests of either of these two communities at heart. Everybody in town has jumped on this bandwagon and they are manipulating this issue.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “I've always worried about it. I've been a politician now for 14 years. I was just about to say that it's not the first time this has happened to me in the course of my political career. It has always been a worry and I guess I partly because I take it seriously, I want to do it right and I want to do it well and I want to play my role in being somebody who can bring communities together. And that's always difficult. And obviously in recent times that has been particularly challenging.”

    2024-02-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Shabana Mahmood One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source