'You will protect our great island!': Tory minister Sajid Javid reveals the astonishing moment ex-PM Margaret Thatcher took him by the hand and gave him 'a message'

By Jane Fryer for the Daily Mail

Published: 06:01 EST, 6 May 2015 | Updated: 11:13 EST, 6 May 2015

Sajid Javid, Britain’s first Muslim Cabinet member, son of a Pakistani bus driver, Mrs Thatcher’s greatest fan and the fastest rising star of Cameron’s government is in the back of a taxi.

We are running an hour late, he is wearing rather strong aftershave and pretending to be a giant green fluffy duck.

‘Come on! You do the Keith Harris bits and I’ll do Orville. Of course I know all the words. We used to sing it all the time when we were kids.’

Mrs Thatcher's greatest fan: Culture Secretary Sajid Javid (left) and Daily Mail writer Jane Fryer on a visit to Colchester United FC, to mark them being named Football League Family Club of the Year

And he’s off. ‘I wish I could fly, high up in the sky. But I can’t.’ You can. ‘I can’t!’

The voice is perfect, high and squeak - he could be Orville, though his face looks a bit pained on the high bits.

(We have just heard of Keith Harris’s sad demise.)

‘So sad. He was Number One in the charts but I didn’t have the record because we never had a record player. He bought so much joy to my childhood. I think I’ll tweet about him. Yes! I’m going to tweet about him right now!’

So he did.

Javid is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and, alongside Boris Johnson, Theresa May and George Osborne, is hotly tipped as next leader of the Conservative party, as and when Cameron steps aside.

In a speech ten days ago - just before accidentally forgetting which football team he supported - Cameron himself seemed to be tipping Javid for the top when he said that the first black or Asian prime minister would be a Conservative.

‘I like to think I’ve worked hard and earned it,’ says Javid. ‘And he must like what I’m doing to have asked me to help with the campaign in such a high-profile way.’

As a result, Javid has spent one day this week in the Bromsgrove constituency he won with a majority of 11,308 last time, and the other six deployed like a sleek, supportive, beautifully tailored missile to help bolster wobbly constituencies around the country.

Javid is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and, alongside Boris Johnson, Theresa May and George Osborne, is hotly tipped as next leader of the Conservative party, as and when Cameron steps aside

Today we're going to Frinton-on-Sea, in infamous Tory/UKIP defector Douglas Carswell’s Clacton-on-Sea constituency, to give local Conservative candidate and one-time child actor, Giles Watling, a bit of moral support.

Or at least, we’re trying to.

The day hasn’t gone well. Our train was cancelled, we’re now an hour and a half behind schedule, the local swimming pool visit has been scrapped, the walkabout halved and we arrive just in time to grab a sandwich in Frinton’s Greggs, dash into a knick-knack shop called Maisie’s Attic and ask: ‘How’s business?’

Imitation: Keith Harris, famous for his act with his puppet duck Orville, died last month aged 67

‘Rubbish!’ growls the owner.

Giles, a big-thighed, red-trousered local councillor looks punctured.

But Javid gets stuck in – smiling, chatting easily. He’s good at it. He stops people in the street, goes up to café owners, looks people in the eye, asks interested questions, even when people don’t recognise him – and most don’t. Luckily he’s good at introducing himself.

If it feels a bit like Javid’s sprung from nowhere, it’s because he has. He’s only been in politics since 2010 and describes himself as from ‘the new intake’.

Others have described him as ‘the millionaire bus conductor’s son’, ‘Thatcher’s greatest fan’ and the ‘Muslim heir to Maggie’.

His love for Maggie – and it does seem like love – was ignited in 1979 when he watched the General Election with his dad.

While other kids mucked about on the school bus, he sat quietly reading about politics in The Times.

Aged 19, he cheered her on at the party conference shouting: ‘Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Ten more years!’

When she was ousted from office, he was at Exeter University studying politics and economics and drinking ‘in moderation’ with his new Tory pals, Tim Montgomerie (now a political journalist), David Burrowes and Robert Halfon (who are both Tory MPs).

The four felt so sorry for her ‘crying in the back of the car’ that they had a whip round and sent her a bouquet and card thanking her ‘for everything you’ve done’.

Husband and father: Javid married his first girlfriend Laura and they have four children

Javid and Maggie finally met at a Conservative fundraiser when he was in his late 20s and working at Chase Manhattan Bank.

‘I was standing in a group of five or six when she was brought over and introduced to us all. And, no kidding, she just ignored everyone and looked at me and held my hand in both hers, and stared me in the face.’

Here he breaks off, takes my hand in his and looks at me very hard with his lovely brown eyes.

‘And then she said: “Sajid!” And I said: “Yes.” And she said: “Sajid, you will protect our great island. You will protect our great island!” And I said: “Yes I will.”

‘And then she let go of my hand and walked off. I couldn’t believe it. It was a message. There were no hellos or goodbyes.’

Gosh. So will he keep his promise?

‘Of course!’

And be Prime Minister one day – our first Muslim Prime Minister?

‘I’m already doing it! I’m working hard for our island.’

In the meantime, wherever he goes – from backbencher, to Parliamentary private secretary for George Osborne, to Economic Secretary to Finance Secretary to Secretary of State – his lucky Maggie portrait (he bought it in a charity action in 2011) goes with him and hangs above his head.

‘She’s the first thing people see when they come into my office. It’s been pretty lucky so far, hasn’t it?’

Just a bit. His rise in just five years has been meteoric – unbelievable, almost. The stuff of a Jeffrey Archer novel, someone once remarked.

But I suspect Javid is one of those irritatingly capable people who can do anything he puts his enormous brain to.

Inspiration: Javid has a portrait of Mrs Thatcher in his office, which he bought at a charity auction

He was the first person he’d ever known who’d been to university (‘I didn’t even know what university was until I went’), the youngest ever vice president of Chase Manhattan aged 25, has earned an estimated £20million fortune, gave up a £3million-a-year job with Deutsche Bank to run for Parliament, and has houses and properties coming out of his ears.

All of which must feel light years from his upbringing, the third of five boys – on Stapleton Road, Bristol, once described as Britain’s roughest street.

There he shared a bed with his youngest brother and a bedroom with his parents. His father, who arrived in Britain in 1961 with just £1, worked round the clock as a bus driver and salesman to give his sons a better life than he’d had. His mother struggled to teach herself how to read and write.

Javid was told by his school careers adviser he’d make a good TV repair man. He did not blend in. The local comprehensive was very white, and he was picked on by one boy in particular who called him ‘Paki’.

‘I probably shouldn’t have hit him, but I did.’

He worked in his dad’s shop at the weekends and every school holiday.

‘I was embarrassed about that, so I used to pretend I’d been on holiday to Spain or France. I pretended I had a tan as well, because they had all been to those places and did have tans.’

But he didn’t have a watch-strap mark?

‘No.’

His music tastes back then were not eclectic – Simply Red, Madness, Keith Harris and Orville.

They haven’t developed much. When he was appointed Culture Secretary in April 2014 his lack of arts knowledge caused a stir.

He’d never been to the opera and knew next to nothing about art.

Today he loves going to the opera, but also the X Factor final, Glastonbury, film premieres (‘my job makes me the most popular dad ever’) and in his spare time watches Games of Thrones and Doctor Who, likes listening to U2 and Brian Ferry and working out in the gym.

He married his first girlfriend Laura – they met over a shared stapler when working at the Commercial Union Insurance Company – ‘I’d love to have that stapler now’ – and they have four children.

He might look ever so slightly like a rich smug smoothie, happiest when working on a tricky economics problem, but he’s surprisingly good with people. Easy, relaxed, interested, patient.

Future PM? He might look ever so slightly like a rich smug smoothie, happiest when working on a tricky economics problem, but he’s surprisingly good with people

Later in the day, when we get to the Indulgence frozen factory in Colchester, with local candidate Will Quince, Javid does lots of nice business chat, politely eats a piece of lemon cheesecake, declares very firmly: ‘Ed Miliband is so anti-business - he just doesn’t get it,’ and looks horrified when told to wear a double hair net for the factory floor.

‘But I haven’t got any hair?’

Everyone has to,’ he is told firmly.

Will is a bright young 32-year-old who ran last time, lost to the Lib Dems and was told he’d be far better if he committed to the area. So he retrained as a property solicitor at the weekends, moved to Colchester and knows everything there is about his constituency. They’d be lucky to have him.

We visit Colchester United Football Club – bottom of League One, about to be relegated, but boasting a lovely shiny new community stadium. The atmosphere is grim.

‘We’ve had a howler of a season,’ says the general manager.

‘Please don’t draw any comparisons with us,’ says Javid’s assistant.

Javid talks to him for a good 20 minutes, geeing him up, discussing plans for a new hotel, the drainage risks of hosting an Elton John concert on the pitch and tactfully avoiding any relegation chat.

He is good, relaxing company, clearly super bright and hard-working, utterly unrufflable and very committed.

And on our hour-long journey back to London, along a busy platform and across throbbing Liverpool Street station, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the man tipped for the top, and one of Cameron’s supposed election heavyweights, is recognised by precisely no one, which seems a bit of a shame. But he does do a brilliant Orville impression.

Comments (164)

Share what you think

• Newest
• Oldest
• Best rated
• Worst rated

 View all

The comments below have not been moderated.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now