James Libson, Managing Partner
Thank you, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining this Mishcon Academy session, part of a series of online events, videos, and podcasts looking at the biggest issues faced by society today. Just to introduce myself, I am James Libson, Managing Partner at Mishcon de Reya, and I will be hosting today's event. And before I introduce Sajid, there are some housekeeping points to mention. If you're online, you've joined this session automatically on mute and without video. If you have a question, you can use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen, and I will pick this up, maybe. Um, if you have any technical issues during the event, please feel free to let us know via the chat, and one of the Mishcon team will help you. If you're in the room, please just raise your hand. Let's get going. Sajid, it's great to see you. Thank you for coming in. Uh, welcome to Mishcon, welcome back to Mishcon's, I should say, because, um, you have been in one of these sessions before, and it's lovely to see you.
Sir Sajid Javid
Thank you very much.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um, I'm going to introduce Sajid, although he doesn't really need any introduction, and then we'll turn straight to the book. I'm just going to refer to my notes, if I may, because your CV is unbelievable, and it's been, it's so impressive. Um, MP for Bromsgrove from 2010 to 2024. Six Secretary of State positions - must be some kind of a record – uh, including Chancellor and Home Secretary. And Home Secretary, I think, is very relevant to some of the issues we're going to be talking about today. And then also very relevant, Secretary of State for Health during COVID. Um. a very successful business career before and after your career in politics. And now, um, as well as your commercial career, you are the chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the co-chair of the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, which we'll also come to. It is a group tasked with examining the forces that are driving disconnection and division across the UK. And a lot of the subject of the book touches on that. Um, so welcome to Sajid.
Sir Sajid Javid
You forgot one. Author.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Author. I'm coming on to that. I'm coming on to the book. The book is fantastic, um, and there are - I'm going to make the plug for you now, and I'm going to make the plug for you at the end - there are lots of copies outside, and I highly recommend it. It's a fantastic book. It's an easy read, and I mean that in the best possible way, because it's incredibly engaging. The stories are fantastic, really interesting, surprising - we'll come on to that as well - and some of it is very funny and very touching too. So congratulations on that.
Sir Sajid Javid
Thank you very much, thank you.
James Libson, Managing Partner
I want to, um, ask you about why and how, um, I thought maybe we'd just touch on, um, some of the anecdotes straight away, and perhaps you'll explain to the audience why we walked into this room and a very, very obscure Roy Orbison track was playing.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, I bet no one had heard that track before. Anyway, hands up if you recognise that? And that's because it's the B-side of a Roy Orbison track. I won't go into the whole story, but the back, you have to, obviously, you have to read the book to get the whole story. But it's when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I fancied myself as a DJ. Uh, my dad had a shop, and he used to play the, leave the radio on in the shop for a bit of background music for the customers and, uh, we lived above the shop, and I decided that, you know, why bother with a radio when you can have a real DJ like me, like, you know, putting music on that customers might enjoy more. The only problem was I didn't have a record player and I didn't have any records and no other means to play music. So, uh, I went down a local market, I lived in Bristol, and managed to find a record player for, even back then it was so cheap, it was £5 for a record player. But it was cheap because it was, I was probably buying this in the 19, uh, early 1980s and, but it was manufactured in the '60s and it was one of these radios that, well you'd call it more of a gramophone player. It had sort of valves in it. So even when you turned it on, it had to spend 10 minutes warming up. And the only other thing I needed was a record. I couldn't afford the record because I spent the money on the record player. So the, uh, the store holder decided that he would, uh, be generous and gave me a disc, and that was a Roy Orbison disc. And the side A was scratched, and that's ‘Pretty Woman’. And the side B was this song called ‘Pistolero’, which I'd never heard before at the time. And so I started my sort of DJ’ing and put a speaker in my dad's shop when he was out. And I played the only record I had, again and again and again and again. So I had nothing else. I just tried to work out different ways to introduce the same record. And there was one other thing about it was, because this, um, record player was so old, the, as you know, everyone knows about record players, the disc has to revolve at a certain speed and the correct speed was 45 RPM. Uh, but this record player was, because of the year it was manufactured, or the period it was manufactured, it either played at something like 25 or 65. And so not only was I playing the same song again and again, I was playing it either at a really slow speed or a really high speed and that's what everyone was entertained to. So that song really stuck in my mind. But my career as a DJ didn't last very long.
James Libson, Managing Partner
It probably lasted just that day, I think.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, when my dad came out of the shop, I think he tried to smash up the record player or something and that was it.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um, it's a great story. It's one of many great stories and it illustrates both your entrepreneurialism, which we'll come on to, and an aspect of your relationship with your dad, which is an important part of the story. Um, tell me why you decided to write the book.
Sir Sajid Javid
So when I decided I was leaving Parliament and I sort of made that public. I was still MP, but was leaving the following year, uh, I got a couple approaches from publishers to do what you might think, like, the typical sort of political kiss-and-tell type book.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Yeah.
Sir Sajid Javid
Um, I thought of it for, like, all of 5 minutes. I just wasn't interested. I couldn't motivate myself to do such a book, and lots of reasons, not least because a lot of what you do and learn in politics, a lot of it is quite sort of confidential. People tell you things in confidence, you know, in confidence and I didn't, I felt it sort of like an unseemly thing to do. I just didn't want to do it. But then it got me thinking, and I thought, actually, I don't want to do that kind of book. What I wouldn't mind doing is telling my story. And one of the reasons I thought about that, I don't know if anyone here has read Alan Johnson's book called ‘This Boy’. And Alan Johnson was a former Labour politician, senior, like myself. He was also a former Home Secretary, actually and he wrote a book when he left Parliament, not a political book, but just about his life growing up in, in his case, in North London, in very challenging circumstances. And I thought it was fascinating, even for me, I found it inspiring. And, um, and, uh, I thought, that's the kind of book I want to write. And the reason was, I just thought my own sort of story, the, for me, my brothers, uh, my parents coming to the UK, it's different. It was, there was very challenging circumstances, there was also opportunities. And I hope by writing such a book, it could maybe be inspiring to others, that, you know, anyone reading it might think, you know what, doesn't matter who you are, where you're born, what your circumstances, that you've got as much right to sit at the top table as anyone else.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And, um, well to fast forward to some subject matter that we'll come back to in more detail. Do you think that proposition of it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, um, is as true today, truer today, less true today than it was as you were growing up and finding those opportunities?
Sir Sajid Javid
That's a great question. I think it's, um, as true. I was, if we'd had this conversation maybe 2 or 3 years ago, I, maybe I might have said it's even truer. I think things are, you know, in some respects, things have got a bit more challenging than a few years ago. But I think it's as true today.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Okay and we'll come on to that.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Because I want to talk about your, your, uh, social cohesion committee and I think an aspect of it is opportunity.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Another question about the sort of the process of writing, because some of the stories are difficult. I think they're difficult to read, um, and must have been very difficult to write. But some of the difficulty must have been in having the discussions with the members of your family and others who are featured in those stories and say, I'm going to do this and, um, I just wondered a little bit how, how that went and how you approached that.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, so, you know, as you mentioned, there's lots of stories in the book and, um, some of them are sort of, you know, sensitive, difficult stories.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Yeah.
Sir Sajid Javid
And, uh, first of all, I didn't want to, I sort of first of all, I sat down and thought, what do I, what's important to share? Trying to remember a lot of the sort of detail myself and one of the ways I sort of did that with others was to sort of, whether it's one of my brothers, a cousin, my mother, you know, almost like interviewing them again, trying to sort of remind them, and then explaining the reason I'm asking is that I want to write about it, and sort of getting into it a bit more gently, rather than just saying, hey, I'm writing a book. Can I talk about this? Um, but you know, in the end, I think I found that everyone understood why I wanted to write the book, why a certain story is an important part of my life. And obviously, every story is, is exactly how it happened, so it is, you know, it is a, for someone, uh, when I would ask a member of the family, it would be, I do want to tell it as it is. There's no sort of, uh, varnishing of it and things. And so, in the end, there was broader well, almost everyone was very happy with that approach.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And the only person who couldn't, I mean, your dad and your brother obviously weren't able to.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Able to, as it were, join those conversations and consent to it. So thinking particularly about your dad and I think you did him great justice, but some of those stories were difficult as well. That must have given you pause for thought?
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, because it's a, you know, I love my dad, and, you know, still do, and in many ways a fantastic dad, but there were things about him, you know, the physical punishment that I received sometimes, my brothers received, obviously, that I didn't like and, uh, hated. And, uh, I thought carefully about writing it, but it's such an important part of my life, and in one way, it sort of moulded me into what I am today, you know, so, for example, when I, many years later, I mean, the government and now obviously in government you're in a position, especially with the, the privileged positions I had, to actually do something for society and things. I, I did a lot around, in every job I had, even not, not just the most obvious ones, but every job to, to help children and young people and, uh, and, and, and protection of children, especially when it came to violence and abuse of children in, in lots of ways. And I think if I look back, I think one of the reasons was probably because, you know, thinking back about myself and how much I hated things, just the idea of that, and now I'm thinking I'm in a position to do something about it.
James Libson, Managing Partner
I think the skill with which you tell it is that you tell it very, very, in a very raw way, but with no judgement. Um, and I think you pull that off absolutely brilliantly.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And as I say, the denouement at the end and we'll come on to it with your last, the meeting with your dad at the end when he sort of confronts it is profoundly moving and very moving.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, thank you.
James Libson, Managing Partner
So, so I want to touch on three themes, uh, that are covered in the book. Um, racism, family, um, and opportunity and how, and how you found opportunity and how you forged your career. There's a fourth theme that I said I'm going to speak about, and it's about your naughtiness. You were just a naughty boy, and, um, I want to touch on some of those stories, because I think there's a serious aspect about the way in which you were treated by some of the authorities and the people around you that allowed you to move on and not be, um, stuck within that. Um, but let's start with the racism. And each of these themes are explored through the various stories that Sajid tells in the book, and I'm going to ask you to talk about some of the stories to illustrate it. So, we'll start with, with racism, and as you and I have discussed, the way in which you look at racism is not about just racism that you experience. In fact, that's quite a little, small part of it, although it, it is significant, uh, but it's your observations of racism in society as you grew up in a different era. And one of those stories is the story of the young man when you were at school, the young black man in school that you encountered in the toilet, Trevor and I just thought maybe we'd start with that story.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. No, I'll talk about that but just to say that, I mean, throughout the book, so this is, you know, it starts in the, actually, the '60s, the late '60s, the early '60s, when my parents arrived from Pakistan, obviously no children at that point. And even, and I talk a bit about in the book, right, even sort of just pre-that, in the late '40s, where in the partition of India and Pakistan, where my father had to leave India as a, as a Muslim, and there were Hindus going the other way and so forth. And then learning, growing up, learning stories about them. I mean, that was all racism, ultimately, against Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs and stuff, and a million people were murdered, in that, in that partition time. And that was almost like a sort of backdrop to my family. And, uh…
James Libson, Managing Partner
And were you familiar with those stories when you were…
Sir Sajid Javid
Not when I was very young, but when I was growing up, yeah, from about sort of 9, 10, 11 onwards, yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Because it's an extraordinary story.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. And I tell a bit about that, like what happened with my father in the train journey over when he was about 6 years old. And, um, but then, for myself, growing up in 1970s, early 1980s Britain, I mean, it's different, it was very different to, to today you know, there were the laws weren't as good as they are today in terms of equality. Um, but there was, you know, culturally, you know, I talk about, for example, well, my dad was a bus driver, well actually he was a bus conductor. And he wanted to be a driver. And this was in Manchester. And it's the '60s. And, uh, the, the bus company, the Greater Manchester Bus Company that had a policy of no non-white drivers. So it said no coloureds were allowed to be drivers. That was their policy. And it wasn't a government policy, it was the trade union, the Transport General Workers Union. That was their national policy that they didn't think, they decided that only white people can drive buses. My dad insisted and insisted, and I go through the story, and eventually he becomes one of the first non-white bus drivers. And so I remember hearing all that and learning about things like that. And, you know, so there are many sort of aspects to that but the story that you refer to with Trevor, that was probably, when I started writing the book, it's probably, you know, when I talked about race, one of the most memorable, you know, incidents, which was that, um, I was at a primary school in Bristol. And, uh, so it was in my final year, so I think I was about 10. And, uh, there weren't many non-white kids in my school. There obviously was me, my brothers, two of my brothers, a couple other people and one of them was Trevor, who was Afro-Caribbean. He was a friend of mine. And, uh, and then one day, he sort of excuses himself from class, in the middle of class, to go to the loo. I sort of soon follow. He's gone for like 10 minutes, not that I noticed but I go, and I see him near the toilet somewhere, but around the corner, up to something. I couldn't quite tell what he was doing so I just go over, just curious and I say, ‘hey, Trevor, what's going on?’ And he says, he goes up and puts something behind his back, goes, ‘nothing’. And then I said, ‘Oh, what is it?’ I was just very curious. And then he says, uh, and I could see he looked a bit hurt or something and then he pulls, he, he gets his other hand out from his back, and he's got glass paper. Remember glass paper, like you have in woodwork? He'd taken it from the woodwork class, and he was trying to rub off the black. He said, ‘I'm rubbing off my black. I don't want to be black anymore’. Because he used to get called all sorts of names by people, by kids, other kids in the playground and obviously he hated it. I used to hate being called Paki and, uh, so I understood that. But I didn't really understand what he was doing and why. And obviously, you know, I was a child, so I wasn't thinking about the psychology of it all, but I was thinking, how can someone be so upset that he's hurting himself. And then he said to me, he puts his hand in his pocket, takes out a fresh piece, and he goes, ‘You can try it too. Do you want one?’ And so that really, you know, after, I mean, I was aware of race and racism obviously before that, but that really had a profound impact on me.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Yep, so you say that that had a profound impact and, and gave you a perspective…
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
…on kind of what you'd been experiencing. But I don't get a sense that, um, when you, when you talk in the book and you talk about, uh, opportunities you did or didn't have, that your own sense of yourself, um, wasn't that the colour of your skin was holding you back. You wouldn't allow that to have happened. Is that true?
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. That's true, yeah. Yeah, my own sense, I mean, throughout my life, but even as a child, I, I've never let that be a, a sort of a reason that I might feel might hold me back. Now, it might be the case. There might be someone out there that didn't want to give me an opportunity or something because they didn't like my colour, they didn't like my religion. That might have been the case. Uh, I'm sure it was and I do maybe talk about a couple of times when I thought it was but I never, um, it was never something negative inside me that would hold me back. It was never a chip on my shoulder.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Well, maybe we'll come to one of those occasions when you thought it was, because it takes us quite far into the story. Um, and you coming into the banking industry, and the experience that you had with the sort of more traditional British firms versus the American firms. Because I think that's one of the occasions when you think it actually was that.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. Yeah, I, um, I was at university and I was in my final year. I was applying for, you know, by then, I decided I wanted to work in, in finance in the City. And, uh, at uni, there were visits from different banks and, and I applied to two British sort of, as they were called then, merchant banks, you know, Rothschild’s and Kleinwort Benson. And I applied to two American banks, Merrill Lynch and Chase Manhattan, as it was called then. Uh, in the end, I got offers from both the American banks and a decline by both the UK banks. And I think for the UK banks, it was probably as much about race as class, you know, as I was also, you know, a working class kid at university. I was at Exeter University at the time, which was just full of, you know, posh Oxbridge rejects, and, uh, and, uh, it probably still is. Um but, uh, it was I sort of stood out class wise, you know, I was the first in my family to go to university, didn't know what to really expect. And, and I think, I mean, certainly in the Rothschild’s interview, I remember one of the first questions they had. And it was also a strange way to interview someone, you sort of walk in. They'd hired a hotel room somewhere in Bristol. And you walk in, there was a long table with seven men, all pinstripe suit men and I had to stand in front of them. And they're, like, sitting on, like, a mini stage like this, and they're just all firing questions at you. It was so unwelcoming in every way. And, uh, and then one of the first, after, like, what's your name, whatever, I mean, the first thing someone said, ‘oh, so your name is Sajid? Is it sandwich? Is it Sajid?’ And you think, oh God. And then, um, and then one of them said, ‘oh, what does your father do?’ And I said, um, you know, ‘he runs a shop’. And, uh, he says, ‘a shop?’ Said, ‘what kind of shop?’ And I said, ‘a ladies' clothes shop’. And then just the way they looked at me, I just thought, oh, there's no chance. But equally interestingly, with the American banks, it was just completely different. And that is, and I've got Margaret Thatcher to thank for that. And the reason is because she had just done this massive deregulation in the city called the Big Bang, as it was at the time. And she smashed open these merchant banks, which were basically all old school oligopoly, they don’t worked for a living they just, uh, you know, these are the people that used to start work on a like a Monday afternoon, then leave on a Thursday afternoon, or go to their country house, and, and it's hard to believe now, but the, what they would charge for like an IPO or something was all fixed. And they’d just, the families would just meet between them and agree that we're all going to charge 2% or 3%, and we'll all give each other a bit. So there's no competition. Margaret Thatcher smashed all that. She let all the American banks in. And it's competition that created the opportunities because I've always believed passion, competition is colour blind. Right and it doesn't, you know, you're either good at the job, or you're not good at the job. And there was no surprise to me that's why I got the opportunities from the American banks.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um and you must have dealt with Rothschild’s lots of times since then.
Sir Sajid Javid
Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ve told them the story.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Yeah.
Sir Sajid Javid
I've told them the story. In fact, about a year ago, I was at a dinner and there was a very senior gentleman from Rothschild’s, uh, there and he said, ‘Oh’, you know, he brought it up, he said, ‘I've heard this story’. It was before my book came out. And, uh, he said, ‘We've looked back on our records and we can't find any records of that meeting’. I said, ‘Oh yeah, I bet you can't’. Probably wrote my name down as sandwich, that’s why.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um, and then we go through these topics, I, I want to ask, um, how those experiences informed your public service, your public life.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And in relation to racism, and as I said, as, as Home Secretary, um, it must, you know, you must have thought deeply about some of the policies that you were engaged with at the time, and I just wonder how it plays out in your life.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, it did, it did, um, impact me, it impacted me greatly in that, you know, I, I sort of grew up being, you know, fiercely anti-racist in any, not just anti-Brown, anti-Muslim, but anti, you know, I didn't want anyone to be anti-Jewish or anti-Black or any, it was really, um, something I sort of, obviously, I went into politics when I was age 40. I wanted to be an MP. But even before that, in, in a way I'd sort of, the firms I worked in, how I'd recruit people and things like that, and, uh, some of the charities I got involved in then. But in government, you know, you're just able to do more about it and, uh, and not, I didn't just wait, obviously, the Home Office is a, is an obvious place where you can do more but my first job in government, I was Culture Secretary, and even as Culture Secretary, um, I, I remember meeting with, is it recovered media, meeting BBC and other organisations about what are their policies and what do they do to give everyone equal opportunity to, to report correctly on, on, on these things. I remember trying an initiative that I set up to try and use cricket to try and bring people of different cultures and backgrounds together to try and reduce your risk of extremism and things like that. Um, and when I was Business Secretary, I commissioned a, a, a report then, which then led to a whole bunch of changes around how to get more people of all backgrounds onto boards in the UK. And then as Home Secretary, I was, actually I was Community Secretary as well, when I commissioned a report by Louise Casey on, um, on integration or lack of, in the UK, and then did a sort of integration strategy on the back of that, and then as Home Secretary as well. Um, so it's sort of something I carried with me throughout government in pretty much every role.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And I think, I know that you believe, um, maybe with not quite the force that you did a while ago, that we are the most successful multi-racial…
Sir Sajid Javid
I do believe that.
James Libson, Managing Partner
…integrated society in the world.
Sir Sajid Javid
I still believe that. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And so, um, just unpack that a little bit. Why you conclude that?
Sir Sajid Javid
Well, why, um, I think just, what other country in, what other liberal democracy has had a Hindu background Prime Minister? A black Leader of the Opposition? You know, when I, when I became a cabinet minister, which was in the Culture Secretary of 2014, I was the first, uh, MP that was not white to become a Secretary of State. I was the first MP when I became Home Secretary to hold the great office of state that was not white. But how many have we seen since then, right? And that's just in the world of politics but if you look in the UK, take in the world of business, in, in sport, and, you know, most parts of society, you will find there are many Brits, uh, that are not white that are very successful. And no one's claiming perfection, but I think if you compare what Britain has achieved, just compared to other, say, European, large European countries, small European countries, I think, uh, it's, it’s, we have, we have done so much better in, uh, having people of all backgrounds represented in every part of society and feeling like they are part of society. And so I’d say, I'm not, there are lots of issues and challenges, and that's one of the reasons I chair this commission, I co-chair this commission, but I still believe that we are the most successful multi-racial society on earth.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Although that, that sense, that may be objectively true, but that, um, and whether people agree with that or not, there is a, there must be a slight diminution in that sense over the last couple of years, a few years. It feels that society is fracturing at a rate that we've not experienced before.
Sir Sajid Javid
Uh, yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
It goes to your work.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
But the translation of that feeling is a feeling of greater division rather than greater unity.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think for lots of reasons, and my commission's been looking at them very carefully and looking at the evidence and not just in Britain, you know, in many other countries, but obviously we're focused in the UK, you are seeing a rise in division, more segregation, less integration, uh, more racism, in whether it's, you know, anti-Muslim or anti-Semitism or, you know, there's a rise of all types. And that is deeply concerning and obviously, it's not a direction I think any reasonable person wants it to go. And that's why when I was approached by, about the work of the commission and to look at the evidence, the causes, but most importantly, what can be done and trying to work on a cross-party basis. So my co-chair is John Cruddas, who was a Labour MP and, uh, we work very well together. We've got 20 commissioners, all sorts of backgrounds and we hope it will make a difference.
James Libson, Managing Partner
I'm going to come back to the commission at the end because I'm very interested in the work and where you're up to in that. Let's touch on another theme in the book, family. We've spoken about your, your dad and lots of stories about your dad. Um, a really, I mean a really incredible character as well as some of the, the things you describe about, um, the way in which he treated you. Uh, but, um, an incredibly determined man who was ultimately not successful in his business ambitions, but incredibly successful when you look at the legacy that he created in your family. Um, but so many things to, to, uh, for you to deal with in your relationship with him. So we've spoken a little bit about the violence. We don't really need to speak any more about that. But maybe tell us a little bit about Laura, your now, your wife, your relationship with her, and that journey of hers into the family.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, so I met Laura when I was 18. I'd just finished my A levels. I was waiting to start university. It was a temping job in Bristol and, um, it was the first sort of proper girlfriend I had. But what was, you know, most sort of noticeable to anyone around us, my family, others, was that she was white. And that was unusual in my family, in the community that my parents sort of spent most time with. And, uh, yeah after about a year, when I told my father first, I thought he'd have the strongest views around it, and I was right, that I've got this girlfriend and, you know, she's white. And I said something like, ‘Oh, maybe one day, maybe we get married’. I wasn’t, we hadn't decided, but it was heading in that direction, it was early days for us, but that's how I felt. And, uh, and he didn't like that and said, ‘That's not right’, and, um, and he said, I could see he was upset, but he said, ‘Let me think about this, and I want to speak to you later’. Anyway, so a week later, he wants to come and see me at university, which he hadn't been to see me at university before, so I thought, ‘Well, that must be something really important’. Didn't want to tell me what it was. Comes to see me, sits in my dorm on the end of the bed with me and then he says, ‘look, this, you know, I don't mind if she's your friend and that's fine, but you can't marry her’. And I said, ‘look, why not?’ And he said, ‘look, you can't, you just can't’. He just kept saying, ‘you can't’. And then eventually I was getting really frustrated. I said, ‘why not? You just keep saying that’. And then he said, ‘because you're already engaged’. And I thought, all right, okay, you know, that's news to me. And so he'd engaged me to a cousin. Now, I had no idea. I knew the cousin, and I liked my cousin as a cousin, but I had no idea I'd been engaged. And prior to that, two of my brothers had married cousins. And, uh, first cousins. And so we, I told him, ‘look, I'm not, this is mad. I'm not going to. First of all, you've got no right to engage me, you know, what makes you think you can do that?’ And, uh, he did say a bit that, ‘Actually, I do have a right. I'm your dad’. I mean, try saying that to my children today. And, uh, then, you know, for a while, I just sort of let it sit and said, Maybe he'll calm down, or whatever. But it didn't calm down and, um, and so it was, and I was also thinking, ‘Do I share this with Laura or not?’ And I did. And, uh, one thing I say in the book, I think towards the end, is that I, there were a number of things like that coming from my family and others because of our interracial relationship. It's pressure on me, but there's so much more pressure, I felt, on Laura. And I just can't understand why she didn't leave me, right? Because I think a lot of people that the pressure about your family doesn't want you, and, or his family doesn't want me and, I mean, I talk about in the book, there's that instant where eventually after, you know, like 3 years, my parents have not met Laura. They don't like the relationship. My brothers are really happy with it and stuff, they all meet her, but my parents don't meet her. And eventually my dad turns around and says, ‘Okay, me and your mum, we would like to meet Laura's parents. We've decided, you know, that we'd like to meet them’. And I thought, breakthrough, right? They're going to meet the parents, and this is really cool. So we arrange this without us. So they're going to go out for dinner. And they go out for dinner. And, uh, Laura and I are waiting for Laura's parents to get back. And they do that evening. And I say to Laura's mother, like, ‘how did it go?’ I mean, by the way, Laura's parents were great about the relationship, they couldn't be better, complete opposites. And, uh, at first, Laura's mother just said, ‘oh, yeah, it was nice’. I didn't say much. Anyway, the next morning, Laura calls me. I call her up, and she's absolutely completely in tears and I go around to see her, and she said, ‘Guess what happened at this dinner they had?’ She said, ‘Your parents spent 2 hours telling my parents that the worst thing they could possibly do is let their daughter marry their son, that that is the worst thing that could ever happen to them, and how she will never be accepted and she'd never be accepted by the community, she'd be an outcast, and people wouldn't like their interracial children, and all this stuff’. And Laura had been told all that by her parents, and fair enough, but again, I just thought, she still hasn't, like she's still sticking with it. And then separate also, because I talk about this racism in the book, like in all directions, right? Because now we're talking about from brown people to white people, in effect, right? And then, um, but then Laura's at university. She's at a different university to me and, uh, and one of her housemates is Indian Hindu. And her housemate keeps telling her that these, uh, these Muslim Pakistani boys are all the same. They'll play around with these white girls, and then they'll just do a runner, right, and go and do what their mum and dad say. And so she's constantly being told that every day by her housemate. And she still sticks with me. In fact, it's our 30th wedding anniversary next year.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Congratulations.
Sir Sajid Javid
So there we are. That's where we are today.
James Libson, Managing Partner
This one I'm not doing a spoiler because you absolutely have to read the book for the, you think that after Sajid and Laura have gone through all of this, they get to their wedding day and there's going to be…
Sir Sajid Javid
Oh yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
You get to this bit of the book and you think, fantastic, it's going to be this lovely romantic—
Sir Sajid Javid
Wedding with my parents. By then my parents are completely in love with Laura.
James Libson, Managing Partner
But then the wedding day story, and even the wedding night story, just to get the room really excited, quite extraordinary.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. I don't say everything, by the way. Not that kind of book, all right?
James Libson, Managing Partner
Quite extraordinary. So…
Sir Sajid Javid
But one thing I will say, because I think it's only fair that today, obviously, my father has sadly passed away, but my mother, um, she regrets everything that happened with Laura, and she's told Laura umpteen times and, uh, if you asked her today, you know, she'd say, I can say it here because none of the other, um, daughters-in-law are here but she would say it's by far her favourite daughter-in-law, you couldn't have married a better person, she's amazing, I was completely wrong. I couldn't be so wrong and, you know, it's, you wouldn't recognise what I've just said. And so it just shows you, you know, people just people change.
James Libson, Managing Partner
And at the end of the book, when you, you're reflecting, you, you very, very beautifully sum up, um, what your family gave you, what those relationships gave you in life. And just a little bit on that, because it's, it, it is a very important aspect of the book.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. Which bit? The…
James Libson, Managing Partner
In the epilogue, you, you talk about how the values that your parents instilled on, in you, despite all of the difficulties, despite all of the stuff that you had to encounter with their refusals to accept Laura, the differences with your dad. In the end, you say that a lot of what you have achieved.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't have achieved what I have because if it was not for my parents and their values and they, what I mean by that is that they, you know, despite what I've just the couple of stories I shared, is that they did, in their way, they cared deeply for their children, their 5 boys. They did everything. They worked incredibly hard. You know, my dad was, my mum and dad were working. My dad would work 7 days a week. He was even in the shop 6 days a week. And then on the Sunday, there was a warehouse he worked in. My mum would work in the shop 6 days a week. And, um, they just worked all the time. Part of the reason I got up to some mischief was my parents weren't around during the day. You know, I'd come home from home from school or in the summer holidays. We'd never go on holiday, we couldn't afford it so I'd always be sort of hanging around with my brothers at home in the flat while my parents were working in the shop and we just had a lot of free time. Uh, but they worked incredibly hard. And they focused relentlessly on education and the importance of education. And, uh, and, uh, whatever school we were at, like good or bad, they always wanted us to get the most of it. They would march us to libraries and stuff to read books and make sure we sat there for hours. And at the time, I sort of think, this is like, you know, why are my parents so obsessed with this? My mum would overlook my homework, and she never went to school. She was brought up in a village in Pakistan, and girls did not go to school at that time so she couldn't sort of understand the math or whatever, but she'd still be looking over my shoulder while I'm doing trigonometry or something, asking me if I've got it right and things. And I'm thinking, like, why? You know, but it was that kind of household and in the end, it was that focus on education, the hard work, the love that made a difference.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Mischief. It was a little bit more than mischief, wasn't it? The, tell everyone what strimming is and how you fell foul of that hobby.
Sir Sajid Javid
Well, um, so I think, yeah, so obviously the incident you're talking about, we got into a lot of trouble. When I say we, it was me. I used to hang out a lot with, uh, well, basically my best friend at the time, it was my brother, Bas. I mean we're still very close. And, uh, and Bas and I, he's just younger than me, he's about 14 months younger than me. So we weren't that, and often we'd be in the same class together, and even definitely in the same school. And this is one particular summer when I was, um, I think I was 12 and he was 11. And, uh, we had a lot of time on our hands and, uh, the street that we lived in in Bristol, um, it had a lot of these like amusement arcades with fruit machines, like gambling machines for adults. In those days, they were for adults, but they used to let kids in all the time. And we were just hanging around in one once and, uh, we just, you know, passing time and we saw some kids, uh, crowded around a machine, and they seemed to be winning a lot of money. Anyway, long story short, they were cheating the machine by strimming it. And strimming was, um, uh, you get like a plastic wire, thin plastic wire, put a little sort of J-curve in it, put it into the slot, and it sort of mimics a coin's action, and you get like a, what you might call a free credit. And so obviously you're going to win if you're not putting any money in. And we thought, and Bas and I were amazed by this, thinking this is just like the best thing we've ever seen in our lives. How can we get hold of this, you know, this magic piece of plastic? And so we asked the guys, and they told us it was fishing tackle. I had no idea what fishing tackle was. I didn't really know anything about fishing. And so we get out the Yellow Pages, and we think, right, where can we buy fishing tackle? Let's look for a fishing shop. We find one fishing shop in Bristol called Veal's, uh, Fishing and, uh, we walk in. And I still remember it. The bell rings, and you walk in. A bloke comes out from the back, old chap and he looks us up and thinks, these two Asian kids, what on earth are they doing? Like, the way we were dressed and stuff like, we just didn't look like fishermen.
And, and he says, ‘what would you like?’ And he said, ‘How can I help you?’ And we said, ‘Oh, we'd like some fishing tackle’. And then he said, um, ‘Okay’. Looking at us strangely, he said, ‘Okay, how much would you like?’ First he says, ‘What weight would you like?’ We had no idea it comes in weight so we just said, ‘We don't know’. Said, ‘About this thin’. And then he said, ‘How long, like, how long a strip do you want?’ And we just knew that we've got to stick it in this machine, so we said, ‘About 5, 6 inches’. And he goes, ‘You're not going to catch many fish with that’. And he goes, ‘Where are you fishing?’ And we thought, ‘Oh, God, he's got us now’. And, uh, before I could answer, the only thing I knew about fish, there was like bird's eye fish fingers I'd see on TV. That was it. And, uh, my brother suddenly shouts, ‘River Avon’. It's just the only body of water he knew. Anyway, so we walk off with this, and we, um, start trying it works. Anyway, to, to, to take it to its sort of conclusion, we then get totally carried away that we can make money from these machines, uh, that we decide where can we make a lot of money. And that is, you go somewhere where there's a lot of these machines, and that was Weston-Super-Mare. So we catch a bus, go to Weston-Super-Mare, walk into this huge amusement arcade, and we start fiddling the machines and we are getting a lot of money out of the machine. And the bloke that was the manager that day comes over to us, says, ‘boys, you seem to be really good at playing these machines’. He goes, ‘you know what?’ He goes, ‘I've got a machine around the back that got a special jackpot of £10’. Normally it's like £3. And the two of us being idiots, we just thought, wow, really? Oh my God. And so we walk around the back. And what happened? We walk around the back, he slams the door shut, and he turns around and he says, ‘Right, you Paki bastards. You've been ripping me off. If you weren't kids, I'd beat the shit out of you’. He goes, ‘But instead, I've called the police’. And he had. And the police arrived, and we got arrested. And we got charged for theft. And, uh, and we were kids and we were like, yeah we were very worried about that. We were actually most worried about my dad. What was he going to do? And, uh, and so we end up going to the police station. We get put in the police cell. And, uh, they can't interview us straight away because they're going to call a, um, a social worker. First they actually call my dad and the police officer comes back in, pops his head in and he said, ‘We called your dad, and he said he's not coming’. I mean, okay, this is not a brilliant start. And so then they have a social worker with, and I couldn't afford Mishcon at the time, so we got a court appointed lawyer. Uh, I'm sure Mishcon would have done it. I'm sure James was in charge at the time.
James Libson, Managing Partner
We would have done it properly.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah and anyway, we, um, so yeah, to bring that story to a conclusion. What was I think, when I was reflecting on that and writing about it, is that a couple of things is that, yeah, so what happens about a month later, so please take all the, so my brother and I, we decide we're going tell the truth. Right, we're just going to be honest because, first of all, we're sitting in this police cell and we're thinking, are they listening to us, whatever. And, uh, then I, my brother and I, we had a secret language that only we could understand. And that's called Punjabi. And so in our secret language, we conclude we're going to tell the truth because it's the best way out of it. And not least because my brother Bass had already been in trouble with the police about a year earlier where he got caught shoplifting a pen and got a caution for it. So he'd already been in trouble, and he'd been told if he ever does anything again, he's going to get charged and convicted for both offences. So he was particularly worried. And, and I was as well, but he was in particular. Anyway, a month later, we're now at the police station with my father, and we're about to be told what's going to happen to us. Like, are we going to get charged? Are we going to, what's going to happen? And, uh, my dad, um, the police officer asks, you know, my dad, you know, has he got anything to say before he tells us what's going to happen to us? And my dad really sort of, um, opens up and says, look, he and his wife, we came to this country, we're immigrants, and we want the best for our children. This is our fault. We should have been at home. We work all day. It's our fault it’s not the kids, these are good kids, you know, their school reports aren't bad and stuff, but they're really smart. Sajid's really smart, Bassett's really smart, and he really, and he starts crying. Like, genuinely, properly crying in front of the police officer, saying that my kids, they're good boys. Honestly, I swear to you, Mr Police Officer, he was calling him, they are good boys, and if you give them a chance, they will prove it. And he looks at me and says, you will, Sajid? And I meant it. And I said, yeah, Dad, I will. I'll prove it. And Bas is saying the same thing. Bas has started crying. And, uh, and then the police officer gives him a couple of tissues and then says, ‘Okay’ he said, ‘Right’. Opens up his file and then he says, ‘Sajid’, he says, ‘See your name here?’ And I looked at it. He says, ‘See what it says next to it?’ And I saw it and I said, ‘It says 'caution’. So he said, ‘Yes’. He goes, ‘That means I'm going to caution you. If you don't do anything again, while you're a child. This will be wiped from your record and nothing, it's as though it never happened. You're going to get a second chance’. So I thought, phew. And then he looks at Bassett and he says, ‘you see what it says next to your name?’ And it said guilty. Sorry it said ‘charge’, said, ‘charge’. And I thought, I mean, I didn't know much about the law then, but I knew enough that that wasn't a good sign. And so did Bassett. And, uh, and then he just looks at Bassett and he sort of takes, it was only a couple of seconds, but it felt like a lot longer. And he takes out a pen, crosses out charge, and writes caution. He says, ‘I shouldn't do this’. He said, ‘but I'm doing it’. He said, ‘I've never done this before. I've never given someone a double caution like this’. And he said, ‘this is your last chance. And I'm only doing it not because of you, but because you're Dad’. And that was it. And then we did change. It was actually, for me, it's probably one of the most important days of my life, as it completely, in terms of my focus. We didn't do anything naughty after that and stuff and it all changed. And I thought, you know, I need to prove to my dad that actually I've changed and that we will make him proud, like he was telling the police officer. And to finish that story off, you know, in the book. Just to bring that to a logical conclusion, as you know, I was Home Secretary after that. And one of the jobs of a Home Secretary is that every year, the police officers, most senior police officers in the country, they go through a training programme to get into that class of most senior officers and it’s a, it's a senior officers' course that happens at the National Policing College. And there's only about 20 officers, I don't know what the exact number is, but it's under 20 a year that are nominated for this and do this. And so it was my turn as Home Secretary to go to this college. So I go to the college, and, um, my mum's in the audience. And the reason my mum's there is not just because of me. It's because that one of the officers that is qualifying as a senior officer is my brother, Bas. So my brother has been a police officer, he joined the Royal Navy. That was 10 years. He went to war in the first Gulf War, did that for 10 years. Then he joined the police and, um, became a senior police officer. He actually became the Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Met. And, uh, and he's passing out that day. And so there I am on stage. And they call his name as like they want him to come up, and I have to hand him his certificate. And my mum is sitting right in front of us, like this gentleman is, right there in front of us, and she's crying. And then afterwards, when we went up to her, she said, ‘if only your dad was here now to see that from that police station, one of you is Home Secretary, one of you is one of the country's most senior officers’. So that's the story in the book.
James Libson, Managing Partner
It's an incredible story. And, and it illustrates that, that last theme I wanted to talk about. Uh, opportunity, and those moments in people's lives where it could have gone completely the other way.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Now, there are a few of those moments, I think, in, in the book, not quite as dramatic as, as that one, but it's also the kindness of people or people's open-mindedness. Um, and it was with the police officer, it was with some of the teachers.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um, and I think that opportunity exists for people who are determined and ambitious. But it does require other people to…
Sir Sajid Javid
Yes, of course. Yeah. There's a bit of luck needed to meet the right people.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Yeah a bit of luck. Who can count on the right people.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
I've taken up so much time and I've just looked at my watch and realised I haven't given any time for questions. So we've got another 5 minutes or so, so let me ask if there are questions live in the room. Maria?
Maria
Hi. You're a great storyteller. You've reduced me to tears several times.
Sir Sajid Javid
Oh, thank you.
Maria
Um, you probably cover it in the book, but, um, just tell me a bit about your decision to go from finance into politics, um, and how, first of all, you made that decision, then how you made it reality?
Sir Sajid Javid
Um, actually, I wanted to go into politics before even I wanted to go into finance and I was a, it was when I was at university. And, uh, I, the story I shared earlier about, it wasn't a political point, it was just like Margaret Thatcher did something, deregulation of the city and it meant it opened up the city, and I could get a job. And there are things like that, I just got so interested in politics and current affairs. You could see that actually if politicians do something, it can have an impact. Obviously, it can have a negative impact, but it can also have a positive impact on society. And it got me very interested in politics and I started reading around it and, uh, reading a lot of books. And I thought, that's what I'd do one day, or try to do, um, but I wanted to make some money first. Uh, because I didn't have any and I thought, I want to, first, I want to get my parents a house. They always lived above the shop so I thought, if I can work hard, make a bit of money, I can buy them a home. Which I did. Um, and, uh, also, I didn't, I just felt I'd be a better politician if I didn't have to think about money. And, uh, and that's why I went into finance in the city and I really enjoyed it but it was a, for me, it was sort of like a gateway into that. But now I'm back in finance. Not going back into politics.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Chris?
Chris
Thank you. Um, you've beautifully segued into what I want to ask you about with that final remark. Um, not everybody in the room or online will necessarily agree with me, but to my mind there are certain politically active individuals and groups in the UK at the moment who are creating exacerbating or exploiting some of the issues that you obviously touch upon in the book, although maybe I haven't read about it yet.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
Chris
Observing that, you don't have to agree with me of course, but as you observe that world as I characterise it at least, how do you reconcile obviously your kind of interest and passion for these topics with not being politically active and not being part of the solution, at least in a political sphere?
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, I, um, I mean, I agree with your characterisations. I do agree that because what we've seen, I think, especially in the last sort of, uh, few years, in the last decade, is that the politicians in many countries, some parties have learned that you can get votes by appealing to division and hate, right? And that's happening across the world. It's made a lot easier by social media and how people get news today, and digital algorithms and stuff. That's my view, right? It's just made it a lot easier for them. And that's a big change in some ways from what politics, how it was done maybe, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Certainly the world I grew up in as a child. And, uh, and it's happening in our country, right? We have, you know, the sort of traditional parties. Now you have newer parties that feed on division, on the left and right. They just feed on differences and division. And I think my own view is that I think that's not a good thing for society. Uh, and how do I, what do I do today? Like, you know, that's something I want to do something about, but I'm not, obviously, I'm not in politics anymore, but I also don't want to be party political anymore. Uh, nothing wrong with it, it's a feature of the system. But I feel I'm at a stage where I can make a contribution, but in different ways. And that is why I co-chair this commission. So that's a way of, you know, trying to bring people together and look at the evidence and look at what can be done, you know, learn from other countries perhaps, and try new things at home. Uh, but also, actually, it's why I also chair the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, because I think, you know, British Jews in particular have been very much at the receiving end of division and racism, more than most communities, for lots of reasons. And, uh, and that work for me is not just important because of how British Jews are suffering, but I think there's a wider lesson from the Holocaust in particular about where all kinds of hate has led in the past, and why it's not just about discrimination against Jews, it's all kinds of discrimination. So I try to sort of do my bit, as it were, but through non-political ways.
James Libson, Managing Partner
We've got time for, I think.
Mishcon
We got time for one more.
James Libson, Managing Partner
One question. Any online? Well, let me just finish with the, on that, um, and the work on the commission.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
You've done some initial scoping, as I understand it. You're now in the sort of deep dive of speaking to people.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um, and, and then there's a final stage before you report back.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Um, so two quick questions. What are sort of the headline things that you've discovered so far? And let's finish with an optimistic note as to where you think we can do some healing.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah. So we've looked, uh, we had lots of, well we’ve got evidence sessions. We looked at many different, sort of, let's say, causes of division. For example, we had one recently on digital news and media and that kind of thing. And, and, uh, and we've looked at other countries and some of the things that they've done, right, to try and, um, you know, whether it's through sort of news consumption, um, that reduced segregation and help people, in our case, obviously, learn the national language, English, and stuff like, you know, good sort of practical ways that can help reduce division. So, we've come up with lots of practical solutions. Um, but before we say anything more, I think what we want to do is, well we said, we want to hear from ordinary people. We didn't want this just to be a sort of group of experts that gets together and dictates to everyone else and that's why we're about to launch something we call the National Conversation. We got a lot of support for it from media, BBC and others and stuff, to get out to all communities, villages, towns, cities, people from all backgrounds, in local pubs and schools and things like that, just listen to ordinary people about what they think will help better bring people together and reduce division. We're not, there's no magic sort of, uh, wand in any of this. It's going to be a lot of hard work. Um, and what I hope we get at the end of it is something, in my commission, I've got, we've got people that, a lot of them are not political, but there's people that have, you know, Conservative backgrounds, Labour, Reform even, um, Green, and, uh, and but it's trying to bring everyone together and find the common ground. And actually, what you find, there is a lot of common ground, right? There's a lot of rhetoric and stuff, but actually, when you get people there, there's a lot of common ground. So I think on the big issues of the day, I think we can find good common ground and make a big step forward.
James Libson, Managing Partner
Sajid, thank you so much. The last time, last time Sajid was here, he was here to talk about, uh, mental health, and the one character who we haven't mentioned is Tariq, your brother who died by suicide, and you spoke about that very movingly last time with one of our partners. And the books are outside, signed, thank you, and with a, a QR code in them if anyone wants to donate to the Samaritans, which all the proceeds of the book are going to, as I understand. It's been the most wonderful conversation, fascinating conversation. Thank you for everything you've done for our country. Thank you for this book. It's a really wonderful read, and I really recommend it to everyone in the room. And we can all thank Sajid together.
Sir Sajid Javid
Yeah, thank you very much.
[applause]