Culture secretary Sajid Javid: 'I didn't grow up in the kind of family that went to the Donmar Warehouse'

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/06/culture-secretary-sajid-javid-interview

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White House correspondents visiting the UK sometimes play the game of predicting which leading British politicians might stand a chance of becoming US president. Paradoxically, the only prime ministerial contender constitutionally qualified to run in the US – Boris Johnson, who was born in New York – would almost certainly be ruled out by waist size, hairstyle and libido, which leaves Tony Blair as a rare Westminster high-flyer who could plausibly have won office in both countries.

Until, that is, Sajid Javid. The new secretary of state for culture, media and sport has a very presidential air: young (44), family-friendly (one wife, four children), wealthy (from his pre-politics career at Deutsche Bank) and gym-trim, his shirt crisp and creaseless at 4pm on a humid London afternoon. Unlike many of his new cabinet colleagues, he can also be confident of seeing out his term. Although a reshuffle is expected soon to "refresh" the government ahead of next May's general election, it would seem pretty unfair to kick Javid out after only eight weeks in office. So he can relax and plan?

"Yes," he laughs. "I think it's fair to say there would be quite a shock if I went."

The DCMS occupies sleek, open-plan offices in a building in Parliament Street once occupied by the Treasury, the department in which Javid, who entered the Commons only four years ago as Conservative member for Bromsgrove, began his startlingly fast-track ministerial career: first as economic secretary and then financial secretary.

A petal from Thomas Heatherwick's London Olympic cauldron stands on a plinth in the corridor that leads to the secretary of state's office, which has a door of frosted glass bearing the incumbent's name. This must be aesthetically pleasing to visitors, but makes ministerial switches trickier. While a name-plate could be unscrewed overnight, glass engraving presumably means that a departed politician leaves a longer ghost. So had they got Maria Miller off and Sajid Javid on by the time he arrived?

"No, no. It takes a few days. You come in one morning and there you are."

One of his first tasks was to go through Miller's diary commitments with his aides and decide which to honour. "And they got to one and said: 'Ah, this will take a few days.' I said: 'What is it?' And they said: 'I'm afraid you have to go to Brazil to see England play.'"

He will be present at England's third (and, pessimists fear, final) World Cup game, against Costa Rica.

Can you guarantee that England will win the World Cup on your watch?

"I wish I could. But I'm afraid it's one of the things beyond even my power as secretary of state. I think it's going to be a truly fantastic sporting moment. We've got a really good team."

Almost certain to come up on that trip to Brazil is the investigation into allegations of financial corruption over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Quatar. Should the voting be re-opened?

"I think the allegations are very serious and it's important that Fifa look at them carefully. But it is a decision for Fifa to make, and not for any other country or organisation."

But if it is found that money changed hands, voting should be re-opened?

"Um, I would expect them to take action. But that action would have to be in the interests of world football."

A very ministerial answer but, by current standards, not prime-ministerial. David Cameron has shown a tendency to operate as a sort of media rent-a-gob, offering opinions on sporting controversies, entertainment scandals, court cases and Twitter storms. So I tested if the Conservatives' new rising star could be tempted into an opinion on the other big footballing issue of the moment: should Wayne Rooney be dropped by England?

"As you know, these are the kind of decisions that [England manager] Roy Hodgson has to make – he's the expert."

Leave it to Hodgson, leave it to Fifa: a theme is emerging of respect for expertise and, intriguingly, it continued in Javid's first major speech as culture secretary, delivered on Friday to arts professionals in Bristol, the city where Javid grew up, as one of five sons of a bus driver, after the family moved from Rochdale. The text – topped by a punctilious note from officials, "2,900 words, 29 minutes" – included the promise: "I'm not going to lecture you on how culture should look, sound and feel."

This sentence feels calculated to address a view among culture-makers that Javid's Tory predecessors, Jeremy Hunt and Maria Miller, tended towards bossiness, but also to deflect the complaint that Javid lacks any obvious cultural credentials. Whereas Labour's Chris Smith and the Conservatives' David Mellor, among his predecessors, seemed natural culture vultures, Javid is considered a non-specialist. Is that fair?

"Um, I think it's fair to say that they had very different backgrounds from me. Coming into this job, I've made it clear that I didn't grow up in the kind of family that went to the Donmar Warehouse [in London], or even the Bristol Old Vic. To be frank, it was a treat to get out to the cinema to see a movie."

Although television (especially Star Trek) had the bigger influence, the film he most remembers seeing, aged six, was a Bollywood epic called Sholay, and both the nature and rarity of his childhood cultural experiences have informed his call that culture must be genuinely "for all", drawing in those who have felt excluded by lack of money, education or, most worryingly, by race or class. Javid is concerned by statistics showing that people from "black and minority ethnic" and "lower socio-economic" groups are much less likely to engage with the arts or to apply for jobs and grants in the sector. Why is that so?

"Well, I'm asking the question. I'm not going to sit here without any research and come up with the answer. I'm going to talk to people, maybe feed in my own experiences and see what can be done to increase accessibility and diversity."

Javid's own access to culture has massively increased in the last two months as the holder of a job in which he can get a ticket to anything he wants to see. The day we met had begun with a before-hours tour of the National Gallery's Veronese exhibition by the gallery's director, Nicholas Penny. He has also recently seen, as his Twitter feed reveals, Hamlet at the Globe, plays at the Birmingham Rep and Brighton festival and A View from the Bridge at the Young Vic. After that production, Javid tweeted that it reminded him of his own childhood and, as the themes of Arthur Miller's play are sexual ambiguity and racism against immigrants, I assume he meant the latter?

"Yes. Growing up in Britain at that time, especially at school. Having said that, I think we are genuinely lucky, as British people now, to live in the most tolerant country in the world."

Issues of racial difference and tolerance, though, have arisen explosively recently via allegations of the so-called "Trojan Horse" plot to introduce "extremist" Islamist teaching into some Birmingham schools. Javid, who acknowledges a "Muslim heritage" but practises no religion, says: "I think it needs to be thoroughly investigated, and I'm pleased that it is being. We need to establish the facts. But some of the things I've heard – I don't know if they're true – but there have been reports in some schools of girls being asked to sit at the back of a classroom. I think that is simply unacceptable in our country."

Javid's trip to the Birmingham Rep was to see Khandan, the new play by the dramatist Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. An earlier play of hers in Birmingham, Behzti, was cancelled on police advice after violent protests against its sexual and religious content involving some members of the city's Sikh community. Can the effective banning of a play in this way ever be justified?

"No. I spoke to Gurpreet briefly about that after seeing [her new] play. I think it's important that artists of any kind are able to express their art."

After Javid's appointment to DCMS, a number of of cultural figures were heard referring to him as "that banker", with the inflection that implies the word's familiar derisive rhyme. When I ask him if he had faced any prejudice in the arts world for his financial past, he says: "No. Not at all." But in the Bristol speech two days later, he says: "I'm going to start by making a confession. My name's Sajid Javid. And I used to be a banker. No point denying it."

When I checked with him by email about this apparent contradiction, he replied: "It's clearly just a joke – of course there has been the odd comment, but I don't believe I've faced prejudice as such." He also points to a continuum between his two careers – he first went to the Globe theatre because Deutsche Bank sponsored it – and insists that he will never impose the "bottom line" as the measure of artistic success.

Financial questions, though, are even more fundamental to another part of his portfolio: broadcasting. Does he think licence fee or subscription is the future of the BBC?

"That will be decided when the BBC charter comes up for renewal in 2016."

But many – including, this week, Armando Ianucci, creator of The Thick of It – have argued that, with viewers increasingly watching online, the licensing of TV sets is no longer enforceable. "I think everyone realises that the huge recent changes in the medium need to be taken into account. But charter renewal is the time to do that."

Your Twitter feed recently drew attention to the advert for a new chair of the BBC Trust.

"Yes. Will you be applying?"

The prime minister said it would be very good if it's a woman. Do you agree?

"I think it would be very good if we had applicants from the broadest range possible."

So is it annoying when a prime minister says something like that about something on your patch?

In the background, Salma Shah, Javid's Spad (special political adviser), makes a strange, strangulated noise. But the secretary of state seamlessly repeats: "I think what's good is to have the broadest range of applicants."

Another responsibility that comes with the DCMS seat is dealing with the media industry. Hunt was accused of being too close to the Murdoch empire, while some supporters of Miller believed she was hounded out of office by newspapers furious at her part in setting up, after the Leveson report, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to adjudicate on disputes between journalists and their subjects. Does Javid think IPSO is the correct and final answer to the problem?

"I think the government's role is now over, and it's up to the regulator and the industry to make it work."

David Mellor famously said that newspapers were 'drinking in the last chance saloon'. Are they still?

"I think, since Leveson, we have come some way."

Behind his desk is a picture of Margaret Thatcher, his democratic hero: "Always looking over me. She goes to each new office with me." In the Bristol speech, he jokily "confessed" to his possession of an image that will be regarded as political hard-porn by much of the cultural community. But the revelation, as he must know, will play better in sections of his party. It is the fact that Javid crosses so many ideological boundaries – a non-white, Thatcherite, pro-EU referendum moderniser – that has led some to believe that he might one day be able to unite the Tories' divided sections as leader.

As someone who had almost two decades' experience of working and human life before entering Westminster, Javid is also in many ways an example of the sort of politician many Ukip members claim to crave, although the liberally prejudiced might think that there is one aspect of his makeup that could be problematic for some Ukippers. So does he agree with his colleague, the defence minister Anna Soubry, that the party's supporters include the "frankly racist"?

"No. I don't."

So there are no racists in Britain?

"I'm not saying that. But I think to label any organisation or its voters racist is a silly thing to do."

What she said is that some Ukip voters had racist motivation.

"Yes. That's not my view. I think people vote Ukip from a frustration with politics, which is legitimate, and which politicians have to listen to."

I ask if he plans to challenge Boris Johnson in a future Tory leadership race, but Shah says we are out of time.

After our conversation, waiting at Westminster tube station, I found myself by coincidence (unless the DCMS press office is exceptionally cunning) standing on the platform next to the boss of one of Britain's biggest arts institutions. Learning where I'd been, the cultural baron said: "Ah. Met him the other day. Very smart guy. And he's really been getting around to events. I think people have been pleasantly surprised."

So the sharp and charming Javid seems already to be winning his culture clash with an industry predisposed to suspicion towards an ex-banker whose formative cultural experience was Star Trek. How far, then, might he be able to boldly go?