Sajid Javid’s promotion as chancellor was a significant moment for the Conservative party and the prime minister’s “people’s government” as he became the first person from a Muslim background to occupy the role.
His rise through the party after an 18-year career in banking, where he was managing director of Deutsche Bank, was rapid. After being elected as MP for Bromsgrove in the West Midlands in 2010, he served in the coalition government as economic secretary to the treasury, then financial secretary.
His first secretary of state position was culture secretary, following the resignation of Maria Miller over her expenses in 2014. This made him the first British-Pakistani MP to lead a Whitehall department.
In 2015, he was appointed business secretary. A crisis moment came just a year later when he was ordered to return from a holiday in Australia with his daughter in the midst of the Redcar steel crisis, which led to the loss of thousands of jobs. Yet he kept his position and headed into the EU referendum as a remain supporter though a known Eurosceptic.
In the aftermath of Cameron’s resignation, he ran on a joint leadership ticket with the then work and pensions secretary, Stephen Crabb, who was considered a rising star in the party. With Javid as his chancellor, Crabb said the pair best represented blue-collar conservatism as they came from modest working-class backgrounds compared to then challengers Theresa May and Boris Johnson. The leadership ambition was dashed when they came fourth in the first round of voting.
Under Theresa May, Javid had some quieter years as housing secretary before being promoted to home secretary following the departure of Amber Rudd in the wake of the Windrush scandal. He was the first BAME person to ever hold the position and spoke movingly about how he was “committed to right the wrongs of successive governments” on the treatment of people from the Caribbean. He also publicly apologised to the victims.
He finally achieved his long-standing ambition of becoming chancellor in Johnson’s government in July 2019 after getting knocked out of the leadership race in the the middle of the contest, coming behind Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt.
Just eight months later, he has quit the government without even delivering his first budget, allegedly taking a stand over the treatment of his staff who were threatened with the sack. This is not the first time staffing issues have played out in public. In August 2019, his adviser Sonia Khan was fired on the spot by Dominic Cummings over alleged contact with the previous chancellor Phillip Hammond.
In the Johnson era, where there is frequent talk of the “people’s government” and the “people’s cabinet”, Javid was emblematic of a more diverse Tory party that welcomes and promotes non-white politicians who did not attend Britain’s top public schools.
A source close to the former chancellor and home secretary told the Guardian he was “a family man with a good sense of humour”, adding he was “someone who knew how to run government departments and get the best out of policy officials, making them think outside of box”. He was “always across his brief” and “related to people on a human level, always thanking staff for their hard work”, the source said.
During his tenure as home secretary, Javid struck a more personal note in speeches and interviews. Perhaps looking ahead to his eventual leadership bid, he would frequently allude to his family as a great source of pride.
Discussing the plight of the Windrush generation when he oversaw the government response to the crisis, he candidly revealed his first reaction was “it could have been my parents”.
However, he faced an uncomfortable moment when it was drawn to his attention that the immigration changes he unveiled in late September 2018 to clampdown on “low skilled migration” would have most likely prohibited his own parents from travelling to the UK had they applied in the 1960s.
And on crime policing – another significant policy area under his brief – he would regularly make much of the fact he was raised on a street in Bristol once called by the Sun as the “most dangerous street in Britain”.
His brother, Basit Javid, a senior-ranking police officer with West Midlands police, regularly made his way into Javid’s speeches, particularly when addressing the policing community, drawing on his brother’s experience and counsel.
Two months into his term as home secretary, his eldest brother, Tariq Javid, tragically died.
Javid was born in Rochdale after his family moved there from Pakistan in the 1960s. His father worked as a bus driver and his mother was a seamstress.
His parents and four brothers later moved to Bristol, where they ran a shop, and he went to the local comprehensive school and college for his A-levels. He studied economics and politics at the University of Exeter and attended his first Conservative party conference aged 20 in 1990.
In a moving interview about his background with the Evening Standard last autumn, he spoke of how his parents’ shop was often the target of racist attacks.
“It was sprayed with the word ‘Paki’ on the window about five or six times,” he said, “and I would feel so sorry for my mum who would have to take it off.”
In September 2019, his mother, Zubaida, attended the Tory party conference. Speaking Punjabi, Javid told the audience how proud his “mummy” was to have seen “the first Asians to move into Downing Street”.
