AS one of the beneficiaries of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent and ruthless reshuffle, Alok Sharma, after a roller-coaster political ride, now finally has a seat in Cabinet.
He is (at the time of going to press) Secretary of State for International Development at the Department for International Development (DFID).
It was Priti Patel’s old job before she found herself on the wrong side of the Foreign Office and was abandoned by Theresa May.
Sharma was a Remainer in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, but as an internationalist was happy to look on the result as an opportunity for the UK to chart a new, global course and forge new alliances and relationships.
With his wide international expertise in finance, and his political experience (he was working in the FCO in 2016, responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and had been co-chairman of Conservative Friends of India since 2014), when the Brexit vote came in, he quickly adjusted to the reality of withdrawal from the EU.
After it became clear in 2019 clear that Theresa May’s negotiation strategy was doomed to fail, Sharma threw his weight behind Boris Johnson’s candidature for PM and even helped in Johnson’s rigorous preparations by playing the role of Jeremy Hunt in practice leadership debates.
After Johnson’s success, Sharma, along with Sajid Javid and a resurrected Priti Patel, became the three UK Asians with a full Cabinet presence (since 2015 the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, a position now filled by the recently-promoted Rishi Sunak {noXXX}, has only “also attending Cabinet” status).
It was feared that Boris Johnson would re-absorb DFID entirely back into the FCO where it could, as he put it, “do more to serve the political and commercial interests” of Britain.
But by putting Alok Sharma in charge of the 0.7 per cent of gross national income the DFID is allocated (nearly £15 billion, the third largest aid budget in the world), Johnson has probably signalled his intention to benefit Britain in the manner he wishes, while still keeping the DFID as a separate department of state.
Sharma is known as an infrastructure man; he knows how to financially manage large projects and is a solid secretary of state to oversee disbursements to help develop – as a good example – the Viathan Independent Power Plant in Nigeria, without letting the money trickle away into the pockets of local politicians and contractors.
“Currently, Nigeria’s burgeoning potential is constrained by infrastructure and barriers to private investment,” says Sharma, and it is in the arena of investment that he is also preparing to transform the way the DFID operates there and in other countries.
Sharma was a key figure in developing and launching the so-called “Masala Bonds” (rupee-backed Indian government bonds) on the London Stock Exchange that placed the subcontinent on a sure footing to gain much wider, and cheaper, international investment than it had previously been able to attract.
Sharma now proposes to engineer similar financial products for Nigeria and other African nations. “While I was in Nigeria,” he says of his recent visit there, “I discussed with vice president Osinbajo the idea of doing the same thing with a range of African currencies, such as the Nigerian naira, and creating a ‘jollof bond’ – named after the well-known west African rice dish.”
It is a happy ending to a story that two years ago appeared fatal to Sharma’s ambitions. At the time, the Grenfell Tower fire in the summer of 2017 looked to be the abrupt and unfair end of his political career, after No. 10 decided that (junior) heads should roll over the incident.
As a then-housing minister – he had in fact been in post for less than 24 hours when the fire broke out – Sharma was shoved forward and then left exposed to the fire of the media and the House of Commons. He had to answer for long-term systemic failings in construction and safety legislation that led to the 72 fatalities that night.
However, instead of providing a sacrificial goat to baying journalists and MPs, and the outraged public, Sharma’s transparent sincerity and genuine emotion carried him through the crucible, so that he emerged from the tragedy as a decent and upright character. His career was, if anything, tempered and strengthened by the ordeal.
“I can tell you,” he said to Eastern Eye afterwards, “that speaking to the families of people who lost their lives – my heart absolutely goes out to them every time I think about that. You do wonder how they’ve coped.”
Eventually the media frenzy died down and the understandable national rage subsided, leaving not only Sharma but also his then-boss, Communities and Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid still in position. Both men were subsequently promoted in 2018, Javid to Home Secretary and Sharma to Minister of State for Employment.
Luckily for him, this was during a period of low unemployment unmatched for over 40 years, and the position granted Sharma a period of stability in his parliamentary progress.
It was during the early and more politically turbulent years of the 1970s that Sharma’s political views had taken shape in the chilly candle-light of industrial strife and economic depression. Pickets, disruption and power cuts would epitomise the country for him until the election of Margaret Thatcher as PM in 1979.
“Margaret Thatcher was for many people including me and my family an iconic figure,” he says. “We remember what it was like in the 1970s when Britain was basically on its knees and we were referred to as the ‘Sick man of Europe’ – and she came in, an incredibly brave figure, fixing the country’s ills and making such a huge difference to get the economy going. I would argue that she is one of the best PMs this country has ever had.
“She made a huge difference to the lives of people like me and my family. She wasn’t Asian, but she was the first Asian PM in the sense that she absolutely shared our values. And I think it’s very difficult for anyone to argue against that.”
Alok Sharma was born in the Taj Mahal city of Agra in 1967. After his parents moved to the UK when he was five, he grew up a local lad, attending the private Reading Blue Coat School, in Sonning, before heading north to the University of Salford and gaining a degree in Applied Physics.
He subsequently qualified as a chartered accountant and had a very successful career in finance, including a job in Sweden, where he met Ingela, his wife, with whom he has two daughters. He first entered the UK parliament in 2010, when he wrested the seat of Reading West from Labour with a 12 per cent swing although his majority was slashed in Theresa May’s June 2017 election.
