Nadhim Zahawi

Thanks to Brexit, we are now a free nation. But let’s not just talk about the opportunities that follow: let’s take them. If a young boy who came here aged 11 without a word of English, can serve at the highest levels of Her Majesty’s Government and run to be the next Prime Minister, anything is possible. The burden of tax is simply too high. As an entrepreneur and businessman, I know that lower taxes are how we create a thriving and dynamic economy. Taxes for individuals, families and business need to be lower - and will be on my watch. Having been born in Iraq and fled the dangers of Saddam, I know that security, safety and freedom are things that we can never take for granted.

This is an edited transcript of the interview with the new chancellor Nadhim Zahawi on the Today programme this morning. Nick Robinson: You faced a choice yesterday, and I'd like you to explain it to our listeners. Why was it in the country's interests as against yours, for you to stay in the cabinet and not to follow Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid? Nadhim Zahawi: Because we are facing a global battle against inflation. Inflation is raging here in the United Kingdom, in Germany, in Canada and the United States. We have war on our continent that very few people anticipated. And I think many, many people listening to this programme today are struggling with their weekly shop and with their utility bills.

On Monday Douglas Murray blogged that I personify the ‘craziness’ of the British immigration debate. By criticising the views of both a Ukip councillor and a Labour pollster I was apparently guilty of a doublethink, as if there were no political space between open borders and ‘send the lot back’. But there’s nothing contradictory about opposing both those on the hard right who favour the mass deportation of anyone who wasn’t born here and those on the liberal left who want to shut down the immigration debate altogether. We need an immigration policy which works for Britain, one which delivers us economic benefits while addressing longstanding public concerns about the capacity of British society to absorb so many new arrivals.

Today the conference hall in Manchester paid our respects, once again, to Britain’s greatest peacetime leader, Margaret Thatcher. listen to ‘The Conseratives' tribute to Margaret Thatcher’ on Audioboo It is a source of never-ending pride for every Conservative MP that we represent a party which was led by the country’s first female Prime Minister. Baroness Thatcher did more to extend wealth and ownership across the country than any other politician. We are all better off because of what she did. But it’s not only in the conference hall in Manchester that Baroness Thatcher’s legacy is alive and well. Across the country we see the change in the transferring of wealth from the state to the people.