‘Let prisoners work’: an interview with Dominic Raab

Whitehall is still adjusting to the government reshuffle. When I enter Dominic Raab’s new office and start to look around, he immediately points out that the art on the walls is not his choice but that of his predecessor. He was shifted from Foreign Secretary to Justice Secretary, a move widely seen as a demotion, only a couple of weeks ago. Decoration, he says, has not been his priority. The only personal objects in his office are family photographs.

Raab seems full of nervous energy, but when he speaks about his family story he is more considered. He talks matter-of-factly about how his Czech father survived in a refugee camp in Tangiers in 1938 by eating off the floor. He then moved to Britain, worked for Marks & Spencer and built a new life. ‘He became very patriotic,’ he says. ‘Almost more pro-British than a native-born Brit. And I was always instilled with those values.’