I arrive to meet Sajid Javid well versed in the details of his back story. I know, for instance, that his late father, Abdul Ghani, landed at Heathrow airport in 1961 with a £1 note in his pocket and lifted his five sons and wife out of poverty through sheer toil – working, variously, as a bus driver, factory worker and shop owner. I realise that unlike most Tory ministers, Javid grew up in the inner city, was raised Muslim, was the first member of his family to attend university and went to a comprehensive school, where careers advisers suggested he become a television repairman.

The reality of Bristol’s Stapleton Road, once dubbed “Britain’s worst street” by a Sunday newspaper, still takes me aback, though.