this is bbc news. the headlines: the polls have closed in russia's parliamentary elections, with president putin's united russia emerging as clearly the largest party. with 25 percent of the ballots counted, it has just over 44 percent of the vote. few anti—putin critics were allowed to run and there've been claims of widespread voter fraud. a volcano has erupted on the spanish canary island of la palma. homes have been destroyed but it's not yet clear how many. a two—kilometre—wide exclusion zone has been set up around the volcano, and the spanish prime minister has postponed a diplomatic trip to go to the scene. some of the biggest names on television are gathering in los angeles for the emmy awards, honouring the best tv of the past year. there are high hopes for british talent with "the crown"

leading the nominations along with the london based football comedy "ted lasso" earning 20 nominations. now on bbc news...it�*s political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking. the programme in which i have a conversation with, rather than carrying out an interrogation of, someone who shapes our political thinking. no politician since winston churchill has had as many seniorjobs in the cabinet as my guest this week. sajid javid replaced matt hancock as boris johnson's health secretary. before that, he himself has had to quit as chancellor after a spat with dominic cummings. he'd also done a host of other jobs — home secretary, business secretary, communities secretary and culture secretary as well.

he revealed in a speech this week that his mum had said, "you may not be a doctor, "but at least you have got a job in health care." sajid javid, welcome to political thinking. thank you. it's my pleasure to join you. so, your mum is pleased that you are not only health secretary but you kept yourjob in the reshuffle. she's very pleased, and, with that, like a lot of asian parents, i think she wanted at least one of her sons to be a doctor and none of us quite made it. and when i did call her when i first got this job she said just that. "well, you never made it as gp, "but at least you're now working in health care." ithought, "oh, wow, thanks, mum." the next—best thing! yeah, it is! as far as she's concerned, yeah. were you waiting by your phone this week, or did you just, like the rest of us, think, "well, he's surely not "going to change myjob now, i've onlyjust got it?" yeah, i... first of all, when you hear there's a reshuffle, may, may not happen, there's always speculation,

so you never really quite know, and once it got going i... i don't think anyone realistically expected that myjob would change after 11 weeks or so in thejob. i think i've done a fairly good job so far, so i wasn't expecting that. so, a fairly quick chat with the prime minister when he reappointed me, and, obviously, it was a privilege to be reappointed. but you've done six cabinet jobs, you've replaced three people who resigned, you resigned yourself from the cabinet. do you have a sympathy for those people waiting for that call? the disappointed, the frustrated, the people who go through that reshuffle fever. yeah, of course i do and it's... for anyone it's...it can be a very nervous day, and, quite literally, i think, a lot of mps are sitting by their phones and hoping it will ring, and ring for the right reasons, and, you know, ithink every reshuffle i've ever seen — and you've probably, you know, studied more than i have, nick, but there will be some clear disappointments, there'll be some prizes, some shocks, but, you know, a prime minister, whoever it is, they have to make these decisions, they have to pick their team and get on with the job and i think that's what happened.

you've come here pretty much straight from the first cabinet, the first new cabinet, so delivery�*s clearly the word on everybody�*s mind at the moment. did you ever expect to be health secretary? after you quit as chancellor, there were all sorts ofjobs were mentioned for you. you were going to be his chief of staff, you were going to do this job or that. i don't think i ever heard it suggested you be health secretary, so did it come as a shock? i can't say i expected it. i mean, first of all, obviously, i was back on the backbenches, and i wasn't sitting there expecting to go back into cabinet any time soon, and i was making my most of my time on the backbenches and doing a lot of other stuff that otherwise i couldn't have done. but when, you know, matt got into trouble, there was speculation, i guess, then started, and i did get a couple of phone calls, just from friends, saying, "look, you know, if matt doesn't stay, you might get the call," and so it did obviously get me thinking about it. and you had to think, is this me? is this the sort ofjob i want to do?

yeah, i did, i did, but i didn't have to think about it for long, because by then, obviously, we all knew, the whole country knew that what's more important than health? what was your own early experience of using the nhs? well, my first memory of the nhs is, actually, going with my mum to the gp surgery — not because i was ill but because she needed someone to translate, and so those were my first memories, and i must have been about six, seven or eight. i can remember those times — it happened many times. fortunately, i haven't been in hospital much, but only once. and i was eight, eight or nine. and i appendicitis, i was living in rochdale, and went to the hospital to, you know, have my appendix out. i remember it was just so painful. i remember and my dad carrying me around and trying to distract me, but it was so much pain, ambulance coming to get me. i don't really remember the operation and stuff. i remember, then, coming home a week or so later and then

being told i had to go back to hospital again. and i thought, "no, i'm feeling much better. "why do i have to go back again?" and the reason i was given was that the hospital and the surgeons thought that they... it sounds funny even to say it now but they had... they couldn't find an instrument when they had, sort of, finished the operation, and they thought they might have left an instrument inside me, so they had to cut me open again to literally look to see if they'd left an instrument inside me, so probably wasn't the best possible experience one could have with the nhs but it was, you know, many decades ago. and it wasn't there, the instrument? it wasn't there! it wasn't there. my brothers still... you'd think they could have done an x—ray or something! i know, that's what i thought, and my brother stilljoke about it today and they say, "oh, look, are you sure you haven't "got a pair of scissors inside you or something?" "can i borrow them?" let's talk a little while about health, and about, of course, a little bit about covid, as well, but i want to begin with this extraordinary fact that you've had more seniorjobs than anybody since winston churchill. do you sometimes feel like you're the, sort of, government's fix—it man? you're like the emergency plumber. somebody resigns,

call for sajid! he's the guy! you've replaced three people who've resigned. maria miller, amber rudd, matt hancock. they're always calling for you to help out. look, i, obviously i've done that under three prime ministers. i like to think they all called on me because they thought i could do a good job. i've enjoyed each of those jobs and i think in each one i've got something done. it can sometimes be a bit frustrating. really, you're just getting going, some major reforms and things, and then you get moved, but that is the nature of our politics. cos you've never had longer than two years in anyjob, i think i'm right in saying. i think that's probably right. probably, yeah, home secretary was probably the longest. and the big, big decision that you had to take was this decision that the job you'd really always dreamt of — you loved economics, you'd been very successful in the city, you'd made a lot of money — you were one of these guys who was, as it were, cut out to be chancellor of the exchequer, and you chose to quit it. now, what was the phone call like to your mum

on that occasion? well, she already knew, of course, probably like the whole country. she was really surprised, and, actually, what she said to me was something similar that you've just said, which was, "but sajid, i thought you always wanted this job," you know, "you talked about what it would be like to be chancellor," "you worked with the chancellor before and talked about "how much you enjoyed that." but as soon as i explained it to her why and, you know, she understood immediately and completely agreed with me. just to remind people, the row was that dominic cummings thought he should pick your advisors for you, that you wouldn't be able to decide who should be your advisor as chancellor of the exchequer. he then later tweeted that he tricked the prime minister into firing you. he actually wrote, "if i hadn't tricked pm into firing saj, we would have hmt —" her majesty's treasury — "with useless sos" — i'm afraid he means you — "spads, the advisors, no furlough scheme, total chaos, "instead of a joint downing street team which was a big success." that's his view. he's like anyone else, he's entitled to his view. i think the...

had he tricked the prime minister, though? well, no, that's what... that's his view, that's what he thinks, but, look, if i look back to that time — i don't really know really what was going on behind the scenes, all i can talk about is how i responded, but as for, you know, mr cummings, he's now not in government and, you know, ijust wish him all the best and, you know, i'm just getting on with myjob. you glad borisjohnson came to the same view of dominic cummings that you had? i think we probably share our views now, yeah. have you talked about it? no. 0h, go on! no, no, we haven't. really? there's no need to. that's behind us. that's, you know, we're looking forward. that's completely behind us. well, let's look back a bit, way beyond that, the reason you wanted to be chancellor in the first place. you were a bit of a star of economics at school. one thing we didn't discuss last time i spoke to you was the fact that you were trading in stocks and shares at a very young age — 14, is that right? borrowing money from a friend of your dad in order to invest

in the stock market? well, i wouldn't quite call it trading. i was buying shares and trying to make a bit of money out of them and that was when, in the �*80s, we had the big privatisation programme, so i was, you know, a lot of advertising campaigns about buying shares, whether it's british gas or british airways or bp or whatever. so it shouldn't have been tell sid, it should have been tell saj! yeah, well, it could have been, actually, and i was listening to those adverts. and, actually, the first time, i remember, that i wanted to buy some of those shares, i didn't have any money — my dad wasn't going to lend me any money — so i actually called up my dad's bank, which was barclays bank, because he had a shop then, and i said, "mrjavid would like an appointment," knowing that they thought it would be my dad. i turn up at the appointment and the bank manager says, "where's your dad?" and i said, "actually, it's this mrjavid, it's me," and i explained to him i wanted to borrow £500 to buy some shares, and, obviously, he couldn't lend it to me — i was a 14—year—old — but he felt sorry for me, and he said, "i'll have a word

with your dad," and, cut a long story short, he basically persuaded my dad, saying that, you know, "i think your son knows what he's doing here, "it would be a good investment to let him borrow £500," and that's what i did. and you've described the pleasure you had finding yourself at home during the pandemic — not really what you planned, but you had some pleasure. what about being on the back benches for that time? was it desperately frustrating? you resigned as chancellorjust before the pandemic began — without knowing, of course, that it was going to begin. did you find yourself thinking, "oh, god, i wish i was there, "i want to take this decisions?" yeah, there was some frustration. especially at the start of the pandemic, because we could all see unfolding on our tv screens and things just how desperate a situation it was for the country, around the world. i had all this experience and i really wanted to help, but i couldn't, and, you know, there was all these big decisions to be made, and, obviously, my colleagues

in government were working incredibly hard doing just that, but i found i was at home. you know, the biggest decision i was making was, who's cooking dinner and what's it going to be? but it was, you know... i accepted the situation and i tried to use that time constructively, as well as being able to do more in my constituency in bromsgrove, but also thinking about, you know, it's a real, actual learning opportunity, and that's why i took up this senior fellowship with the harvard kennedy school. and at harvard you looked in part, i think, didn't you, at the lessons of the pandemic? yeah. and the key lesson would be what, for a future pandemic? well, iwould say, i mean, probably the key global lesson — and this is going to be essential in the future — is to have some kind of early warning systems, so that if somewhere in the world, like we saw in wuhan at the start, something doesn't quite feel right, there's a lot of questions, there's a, sort of, a local epidemic, then those countries should have an obligation to report that, to seek help, and then also, i think, there's a role for the international community to respond to that.

so maybe like an imf—type emergency response system for future outbreaks. and you used a words which you later apologised for about people not cowering from the virus — and i know you didn't want to insult people who'd lost loved ones — but it seemed to me it revealed something inside you that thought there was a danger of us living in fear rather than living with it. is that right? do you think we did too often live cowering in fear? no, that was the wrong choice of word, and that's why i apologised for it, but what i meant by that is that no—one should feel frightened of covid in the way we were in the early days because we have got vaccines, we've got testing, we've got surveillance, we've got treatments. and so it's a way, actually, you want to reassure people that we have tools today

that we didn't have even a year ago, and therefore we can start to return to a new normal. you know, things are going to quite be exactly like they were before, there were some things as a result of this pandemic, you know, whether it's working from home, or things that won't return to exactly the way they were, and that's fine, but ijust want people to know that we've made a lot of progress together and we can keep it that way. we've talked quite a few times this week on various programmes, and it seemed to me you look happiest when you were telling people how they weren't going to live under new restrictions. now, in the past the health department was seen as the bit of government fighting, you know, be more cautious, have more restrictions, be more worried. do you see it as part of yourjob, now, to say yep, take it seriously, have a plan for the worse, of course, but i'm someone who believes in don't put on restrictions if you don't have to, don't give government a role it doesn't to have. myjob is not only to think

about covid—i9, because i am notjust the covid—i9 minister and what i mean by that? , i am the health and social care secretary. health, there is a lot more than covid—i9. of course, covid—i9 is hugely important, it remains hugely important, but think about all those lockdowns we had, the social distancing and all of that and the other health problems are created, the huge increase in mental health problems. i mean, yesterday i was up in blackpool talking to the mental health trust there and the huge increase that they've seen in all sorts of problems especially amongst young people but also the heart disease, that wasn't diagnosed, the huge increase in undiagnosed cancer, and so we have to look at it in the van. in this big speech he gave in blackpool this week he said covid—i9 was the disease of disparity. now, that is partly poverty. sometimes people say it is racism too.

does the differential impact on non—white people of covid—i9 reflects structural racism, in your view? no, i don't think it is structural racism. i think there clearly is a disparity and the facts speak for themselves in terms of outcomes and how had covid—i9 hit certain communities and in that speech i talked about how if you look at people who either fell ill through covid—i9 or ended up in hospital sadly died there was a disproportionate impact on people from black and minority ethnic communities. but it was not racism? no, i think they can be many... i don't believe it is. i think they can be many reasons for that. so, for example, a disproportionate number of people from those communities working from myjob so we may be more exposed to that, may be if you think about vaccine take—up. now, there is no racism, of course, in our vaccine plans. everyone is eligible. something else in the speech he talks about levelling up in health and getting the health outcomes of the people, reducing the gap in other words. will that not in the end mean

reducing economic inequality in using the power of the state and getting more money to councils and things that normally associated wanting... to do? i still think it is early days for how best to do it when he talks about the health outcomes of covid and the higher cancer rates in the higher obesity rates and addiction rates they are actually the same parts of the country and some of them haven't even changed a hundred years. i was in blackpool, they say, the other day, and there has been significant health disparity is there going back 100 years and so i think there are, first of all, that to me means it must be addressed and it is not going to change overnight but there is a real structural problem and a true structural problem that needs to be

addressed but also i think it will need to better economic outcomes as well because it is also clear that your health... if you address it? if you are helping out you will be happy to work, have more opportunities, i think it is a nice virtuous circle to have then if you can make people think they are more likely to say. i think you with a labour health secretary would say poverty as part of the reason we are committed to reducing poverty but there are other things a government can do. you are recommended not so many weeks ago before you became health secretary of a book commissioned by the government saying one of the big diseases of poverty, the city, the way to deal with it is a salt and sugar tax, get the rubbish out of our diet so much food that contributes to people getting fat and boris johnson just dismissed it out of hand. isn't that the sort of thing you should be giving? i am interested in what works. we have an obesity strategy that i have inherited and i am certainly when i come

to prevention i want to take a fresh look at all areas of prevention, obesity is one of them. you know, smoking rates is another wonderful might make you look at the strategy again, with you? this has got to be a huge part of what we do because when you look at some of these issues about obesity be are not performing well compared apparel countries and that is more than could be done and it is the kind of thing that once i am able tojust, sort of... at some time? get a bit of a way of the real focus understandably at the start of my newjob has been around pandemic and making some of those big decisions but in the background there is a lot of work going on especially around health disparities? i'm going to be looking at all of that carefully. when you in this new cabinet describes what it wants to do sometimes you make your own party pretty nervous. tax rises they hear

of because of more nannying and they think what on earth has happened to the party of margaret thatcher. he once said you were rate that you write before you are a conservative. are you still? is the party still? —— that you were a thatcherite. if you think about what we have just referred to that the announcement we will protect the nhs by making sure it has got the resources it needs to deal with a huge challenge, particularly the backlog, protecting our institutions, nhs, one of our most loved institutions, is very conservative. in doing it in a way where you are notjust going to be endlessly borrowing and borrowing to do that but doing it in a fiscally sustainable way with a very conservative way to do it. put taxes up to pay for what you spend? but another way could have been to say we're just going to keep borrowing this money if we are, borrow 12 billion a year

for an indefinite period and that is... that is not fiscally responsible, it is not a conservative value to do it that way. looking after the elderly, making sure that people know and i giving incentives to say, safety is a conservative way and that is what the new cap and social care will help achieve —— drift is a conservative way. if everyone knows the maximum cost they face in a lifetimes of 85,000 a year they can plan for that. so planning and saving for your future. are you saying and it sounds like you are that to become a bit fashionable particularly on the right simply to associate misses that to become a bit fashionable particularly on the right simply to associate mrs thatcher with low taxes where is the unit was about what she used to call sound money, running the finances in a safe and secure way and therefore a tax rises actually thatcherite because it is about

sound money? that is your way of putting it but i think sound money has always, long been a conservative principle. protecting our institution is a conservative principle, encouraging people to plan financially for their own cancer, features conservative principle and that's what i can also completely understand if you want to see taxes lower than otherwise. when you run for labour you yourself said i a latex conservative and said if you're going to cut the top rate of tax —— when you run for leader. i am and my colleagues want to see taxes as low as they can be and as our economy recovers, as we start to see a strong recovery and stay that way and strongest recovery in the g7 next year as we recover, that economic growth i hope can allow us to reduce taxes in the future and that is a future decision for the chancellor and things butjust because we have had to make these things and decisions in the last few days and weeks about the nhs and how we're going to support it doesn't mean to say we have given up on making sure taxes are as low as possible. other things now every day as health secretary where you are saying the data come and warnings at other times when it is hard to sleep at night because she thinks i so hope that wouldn't happen because that

would be really grim? frankly i don't have a problem sleeping that i know what you mean. you know don might learn a lot and in thisjob, this particularjob i have now, understanding, especially on the pandemic, there are things that have already been moments where you learn something and you think while, how are we going to deal with that? i give you an example i have talked about publicly. they could be a vaccine escaped variance at some point and that is a risk of the world. if that happens, as it sounds, you know, our current vaccines work will be changed things and it will take time to what we do in the meantime? and that is something that any health minister around the world we have seen this impact of covid—safe the things that are just so uncertain what we have to plan in the very best way that we can. when you see these ambulances

having to queue up outside scottish hospitals where cases are gone faster, there must be a danger that that happens in england under your watch to? look, we are entering all summer and winter and not just covid—i9 influenza viruses, love that time of year and let's hope that we can all remember times when there was no covid—i9 and we would still have a big challenge for the nhs in the winter. so that it is very much at the top of your mind and working with my colleagues and nhs making sure you have got the support they need. she is outside ana could happen in england, ambulances having... i hope not but it is myjob to make sure it doesn't but that means working really well and closely with my nhs colleagues, making sure that they have notjust the funding but especially longer term that we are making reforms that are necessary

as well. you nostalgic for the life he gave up voluntarily? you didn't need to do it. he had a lot of big jobs, plenty of money. you have on a nostalgic for the time your back with your family at home world being about what to cut? —— cook. i'm really pleased with this job because this is one of the most consequent skilled jobs you can have in government and the public sector today and i really feel privileged that it is myjob and i can contribute in this way. you told us he did some serious work, some studying, if you like. did you do anything in the pandemic, learn to bake or learn a language of the piano or a box set of your favourite? star trek, was the chance to... i didn't watch much star trek. i did watch a lot of

other box sets and i did watch dominic cook a lot more, especially collies. not much baking and certainly a lot of cooking and pasta, one or two really good pasta dishes which my children actually want me to cook it again but i haven't been able to do it for 12 weeks now so i managed to do things that i didn't think i would find time for, of course. i don't think you will have time for a while. thank you very much regarding the political thinking. what makes sajid javid such an important member of borisjohnson�*s cabinet is that in many ways he embodies the tension, the contradiction, into wings of conservativism. 0n the one hand, he came into politics as a thatcherite, a man who believed in a small state and lower taxes and lower spending, on the other, he now presides over a department in which his conclusion is more has to be done to reduce inequality, more has to be done to deal with what he calls the disease of disparity. how he, how the five minutes to resolve those tensions, will settle the shape of politics. —— how the prime minister resolves those tensions. but is it for this edition of political thinking. thanks for watching.

hello there. we start this new week off on a fine note thanks to high—pressure efficiency quite a bit of sunshine around and do feel quite warm in the afternoon. both today and into tuesday. then towards the end of the week, we will see an active jets spin up deep areas of low pressure which could bring more autumnal to our shores. gales and outbreaks of rain will feel cooler too. for today, scott's mother from pushing to the northwest of scotland, yesterday's weather front still straddling, east anglia in the southeast with quite a bit of cloudy times, some showers around, the odd heavy one too. and it starts a bit wetter for northwest scotland through the day with a few showers for northern ireland. the best of the sunshine, slightly to central portions of the uk but we'll see highs of 2! degrees. generally into the high teens the way we have more cloud. as we head through monday night, the weather fronts in the northwest sink southeast words, fizzling out leaving no

more than a band of cloud and maybe the odd shower. eventually, we lose that weather front across east anglia in the southeast. where skies clear will be quite cool, single digits butjust holding onto the cloud around ten to maybe 12 degrees. so, we start tuesday off of our area of high pressure dominating the scene, but we have a deep low spinning up to the north of the uk. lots of isobars here, but it will be quite windy across the northern half of the uk, cloud coming and going for the northwest of scotland and maybe just a few showers, particularly by the end of the day with the rest of the country. england and wales, england scotland a lovely day with temperatures reaching 20 degrees aberdeen 2! or 22 further south. we start to see some changes after tuesday. 0ur area of high pressure begins to pull away and allows this deep low in the north to influence our weather and indeed wednesday is the autumn equinox. it will be feeling more autonomy mental across the uk. a band of rain spreading into scotland and northern ireland followed by sunshine and blustery shadows of the gales developing in the north.

a breezy day as well to the south of this rain band. for much of england but another fine one getting the sunshine out, temperatures 20 to 22 degrees feeling quite warm for that wednesday it looks like being the last day because behind his mother fronted to thursday temperatures drop a deep blow, spins up across the north of the uk we think that will bring widespread gales. it's turning cooler across all areas. thursday and friday will be windy particularly across the north of the uk with gales and

welcome to bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories... stuffed ballots, covered—up cameras. evidence of fraud in russia's elections, as president putin's party heads for a majority in parliament. a major volcanic eruption on la palma in spain's canary islands for the first time in 50 years forces villagers from their homes. the noise coming from the volcano, it sounds like 20 fighterjets taking off and it is extremely loud. canadians prepare to vote in monday's parliamentary elections — with polls pointing to a very tight race. and rolling out the red carpet in la as televisions biggest stars arrive for the emmy awards.