Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Serente.

Today's episode is part one of our recent live event with Sajad Javid, former British politician

for the Conservative Party. Javid joined us at the Shaw Theatre in London to discuss his life

in politics and the lessons he learned at the heart of government. Drawing on his memoir,

The Colour of Home, he also shared the story of his journey from a childhood

shaped by poverty and racism to the highest levels of British politics and reflected on Britain's

multicultural society and his years serving in cabinet under three prime ministers.

Let's join our host, Rich Lashar now with more.

A brief content warning for this episode.

This discussion includes personal experiences of racism and discrimination

and contains strong language, including racist and offensive terms.

Good evening, everyone. Our guest tonight has had an unlikely path to the top of British politics and to the heart of government. Over the course of his career, he's held a number

of the great offices of state, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Health Secretary,

Secretary of State for Business, and served under three different Prime Ministers. Welcome, Sir Sajad

Javid. Thank you very much. Now, I'm going to fill everyone in here tonight with a little bit of

your background because politics was actually the second act of your working life.

Before entering politics, Sajd Javid built a very successful career in international finance.

So two big successes, politics at cabinet level and making a not so small fortune in finance.

But none of this was inevitable. Sajid Javid's father arrived at Heathrow

from Pakistan in the early 1960s after his family lost everything during the partition of India.

He first settled in Rochdale and then Bristol. Sarjid's childhood, as we'll hear, was one marked by poverty, racism, and the

tension at times caused by trying to live between two cultures. He tells this story in his remarkable

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