Full text: Sajid Javid’s Conservative conference speech

It’s a huge privilege to be standing here as Home Secretary. Now I know the question on your mind. So let’s just deal with it upfront. Yes, I did watch Bodyguard. No, it wasn’t very realistic. For a start, my codename is not Lavender, and she didn’t even do the power stance!

But let me tell you about another story. A story which started in the 1960s. Abdul-Ghani Javid left Pakistan and landed in Heathrow. He spent what little he had on a coach ticket, had his first night here in Birmingham, then continued up north to Lancashire to find work in a cotton mill.

After standing outside the mill for weeks, he got that first job, and started a family. Eventually, there were seven of us living in a two-bedroom flat, on what the papers called ‘Britain’s most dangerous street’.

That’s my story. And if you’d have told me back then what I’d be doing now, I’d have told you that it was less believable than any TV drama.