Forgive me for bringing up the subject of politicians and wealth once again but the hard left’s prolonged assault today on the new home secretary Sajid Javid for the fact he earned a shed load of money whilst working for Deutsche Bank, some £3 million a year. Let’s have a little perspective here.
Javid, whether or not you like his right wing politics, was the son of a Pakistani bus driver who moved to Bristol when his dad bought a shop on the Stapleton Road. The family lived upstairs from the shop, Javid went to Downend Comprehensive School, then Filton College and finally Exeter University. Then he made a name for himself working for various financial houses and made a fortune. What, pray, is wrong with that?
Unlike the wealthy comrades who now run the Labour Party, Javid was a working class boy who made his way up the ladder and succeeded. It cannot have been easy as the son of an immigrant with that kind of background to succeed, but I do not see why we should decry it. We can disagree about his politics and I frequently do. He’s a Tory and I rarely find myself on the same side of the argument as a Tory. Should we not actually celebrate his success and encourage our own children to search for the same opportunities?
I am definitely not going to tell my sons that they should accept their lot and take their place in a low paid, insecure job world where they might never own their own houses. I would like to think we have brought them up well so they know what and who to respect and that while they work to succeed in life and do better than we did but to always remember those less fortunate.
Javid actually reflects, in some ways, a better world. It is a matter of fact that if you are born into money, you are more likely to succeed in life. Working class people often have to work much harder to succeed in life. I can imagine that Javid’s family encountered serious obstacles like racism and bigotry on the way up but here he is now holding one of the major offices of state.
As ever, much of the left’s criticism is born of pure jealousy and hypocrisy. They often live lavish lifestyles, send their own children to private schools but they then start bleating when a Tory does the same, and a working class Tory at that.
I think Javid’s politics stink but I don’t begrudge him his success. I just wish he’d have remembered how it was at the bottom instead of trying to kick the ladder away for his fellow working class citizens, like Tories always do.
