Elizabeth Day has revealed politicians won't be guests on her award-winning podcast How to Fail because they don't want to be associated with the word 'fail'.

The 45-year-old novelist told an audience at the Hay Literature Festival: 'There are some politicians who, I won't name names, won't come on the podcast because it has the word "fail" in the title and they don't want to be seized upon.

'So if I really thought about it I might not have branded it that way.

'But I'm not fetishising the pursuit of failure. I'm simply saying that failure is something that happens to us all and it connects us which is really liberating.'

Politicians who have braved the podcast have discussed their failures in Whitehall, their mental health problems and personal relationships.

Elizabeth Day (pictured, in May at The Podcast Show in London) has revealed politicians won't be guests on her award-winning podcast How to Fail because they don't want to be associated with the word 'fail'

Ed Milliband appeared on Ms Day's podcast in 2021 and discussed his failure to win the 2015 general election, suffering from anxiety, failure to get the degree he worked so hard for and a failure to keep his late father, the noted Marxist academic Ralph Miliband, alive

In 2019, Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told Ms Day about her failure in politics, living with daily death threats and how she stays sane by prioritising her female friends

Ed Milliband appeared on Ms Day's podcast in 2021 and discussed his failure to win the 2015 general election, suffering from anxiety, failure to get the degree he worked so hard for and a failure to keep his late father, the noted Marxist academic Ralph Miliband, alive.

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In 2019, Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told Ms Day about her failure in politics, living with daily death threats and how she stays sane by prioritising her female friends.

She talked 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.

The same year, the former Conservative politician Chris Patten went on the show to discuss losing his seat in the 1992 election and his time as Chairman of the BBC where he presided over the Jimmy Saville scandal.

The Magpid author shared that her dream guests for the podcast were Sienna Miller, Michelle Obama, Beyonce and Taylor Swift - though the Midnights singer no longer does interviews.

Speaking about her latest non-fiction project, Friendaholic, which shot to Number One on the Sunday Times Bestseller list, she encouraged people to have a wedding ceremony with their friends before getting married to their partner.

She said: 'An audience member in Bath said that before she got married to her husband, she got married to her best friend because she thought that relationship was as important to her.

'I completely and utterly agree. - they'd gone into the woods and done a wedding ceremony and I thought that was genius.

'I think people should think about having platonic wedding ceremonies that I put it as an extra chapter in the paperback version of my book.'

The Magpid author shared that one of her dream guests for the podcast was Beyonce

The former Sunday Telegraph journalist also revealed she was set up on a date with fellow journalist and author of Empireland, Sathnam Sanghera

Ms Day got divorced from her first husband the BBC News Editorial director, Kamal Ahmed, who she divorced at 36 after four years of marriage in 2014 and is now married to CEO Justin Basini.

The former Sunday Telegraph journalist also revealed she was set up on a date with fellow journalist and author of Empireland, Sathnam Sanghera.

She said: 'We quickly realised we worked way better as friends and he's been a very close friend of mine ever since.'