The new Home Secretary is finally learning to speak up for himself

This time last year, it all seemed to be over for Sajid Javid. Hailed as one of David Cameron’s rising stars, he had fallen foul of Theresa May’s new regime and her shift away from free markets. Hers was a world where government set “industrial strategies” for businesses to follow: he had came into politics to fight such ideas, so he was clearly doomed. He was being heavily briefed against by No 10 to the effect that, when Mrs May won her inevitable strong majority, she would celebrate by sacking him.

But things changed and Mr Javid is now the 82nd Home Secretary and perhaps the first to be appointed through the gritted teeth of a Prime Minister. Her way of doing business – robotic, target-driven, efficient but often uncaring – had led to the Windrush scandal. He had seen the disaster coming so, when Amber Rudd resigned, was the obvious choice to succeed her. Mrs May’s party would not have tolerated her appointing a yes-man (or woman) to clean up her mess, so she ended up promoting the man she had been all set to bury.