Boris Johnson Names a (Former?) Randian as Chancellor of the Exchequer

Sajid Javid 

Boris Johnson's first big move as he settled in as the United Kingdom's  Prime Minister was to name Sajid Javid as chancellor of the Exchequer.

Javid, 49, has described himself as a “low-tax person.”

He studied Economics and Politics at the University of Exeter.

He has worked at Chase Manhattan Bank and then later Deutsche Bank.

He then moved on to politics where he was Home Secretary from 30 April 2018 to 24 July 2019.

He was Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government from 8 January 2018 to 29 April 2018, and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from July 2016 to January 2018.


From Wikipedia:

One of Javid's heroines is Ayn Rand, who is the proponent of a philosophical system known as Objectivism; he recounted once that he regularly rereads the courtroom scene from her novel The Fountainhead, telling The Spectator he admired its description of “the power of the individual … sticking up for your beliefs, against popular opinion”.Furthermore, at a Crossbench Film Society event, Javid chose to introduce the film version of The Fountainhead and described the profound effect it had on him after watching it as a 12-year-old. Javid's wife once threatened to divorce him if he did not stop reading The Fountainhead aloud to her. 

Javid has subsequently rejected core principles of Objectivism, stating he is instead motivated by altruism and went on to clarify he appreciates The Fountainhead because he identifies with the main protagonist: "It’s about the underdog. Whatever Howard Roark wanted to do there were people lining up against him and saying—‘no, you will fail’—and he kept going right to the end".

He appears to be a neoconservative.

He has been a regular attendee and speaker at the American Enterprise Institute's annual conference, whose members include Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton.

Javid has consistently supported foreign military intervention, having voted for intervening in Gaddafi's Libya, as well as air strikes in Iraq and Syria

He is also a member and regular speaker for Conservative Friends of Israel Lobby group.

 He is a second-generation immigrant and son of a Pakistani bus driver.

-RW