Highlights
- 'Starmer is decent and honourable but deeply struggling as a leader'
- He rates David Cameron as the most effective prime minister he served under, despite Brexit
- Reveals his parents secretly arranged a marriage for him to a cousin without his knowledge
- His parents refused to meet his white wife Laura for five years — but eventually said they were "completely wrong"
FORMER home secretary and chancellor, Sajid Javid, has attacked Reform and the Greens as mirror images of each other, populist movements with plenty of grievances but no credible answers, while also warning that Keir Starmer is "deeply struggling" in Downing Street.
Speaking to The Times ahead of the publication of his memoir -The Colour of Home - Javid, 56, said both parties were exploiting public frustration rather than offering real solutions.
"Reform is a populist movement but so are the Greens," he said. "They're different sides of the same coin. There's lots of anger but very few serious answers. In no way do I think Reform or the Greens are the future for this country."
He was careful to add that this was not a blanket defence of the mainstream parties. "Every politician makes mistakes — we made plenty of them as Conservatives," he said.
On the prime minister, Javid said he had always found Starmer to be principled — but argued that decency alone does not make a leader. "Keir Starmer always came across as a decent, honourable person. But that's the minimum you want from any politician. It doesn't mean you're going to be a good leader and be able to do the job. I think he is deeply struggling."
Of the three prime ministers he worked under, Javid said David Cameron was the most effective.
The son of Pakistani immigrants, Javid grew up with his parents and four brothers in a two-bedroom flat above a shop in Bristol, in an area where, he recalled, drug dealing and prostitution were part of the daily backdrop on the walk to school.
His parents had, without his knowledge, already arranged a marriage for him — to a cousin. Instead, at 18, he fell for Laura, a white woman he met during a summer job.
His parents refused to meet her for five years, and Javid said he feared she would walk away. "She had every reason to because of the shit she was getting from them," he said.
His parents eventually changed their minds entirely, telling him: "We didn't know what we were doing. We were completely wrong."
The couple have now been together 38 years. "We are best friends, we share everything, and we make each other laugh," he said.
Javid credited much of his ambition to a Greek immigrant economics teacher, Charles Stamboulieh, who told a 17-year-old Javid he would one day be chancellor. "I just laughed," Javid recalled. His school careers teacher, by contrast, had suggested he become a TV repairman.
