the first asian mp in scotland. he trained as a dentist but then he returned to the family business politics. anas sarwar, welcome to political thinking. my pleasure, thanks for having us. now which is more frightening, waiting for the dentist drill or waiting for the verdict of the electorate? definitely waiting for the verdict of the electorate. i mean, the great thing about dentistry is that you get to be in complete control about, you know. the dentist always asks the awkward questions when they are already in the person s mouth doing the treatment, and i used to always have this thing with my patients when they came in, i always used to try and loosen them up, say, you know, don t worry, i m a pain free dentist. i never feel any pain. and, you know, that, that interaction part was what i loved about dentistry and actually the people interaction part is what i love about politics as well. i was going to say. although some people would say being a dentist, really deep
he is the son of the first muslim mp in britain, the first asian mp in scotland. he trained as a dentist but then he returned to the family business politics. anas sarwar, welcome to political thinking. my pleasure, thanks for having us. now which is more frightening, waiting for the dentist drill or waiting for the verdict of the electric? definitely waiting for the verdict of the electorate. i mean, the great thing about dentistry is that you get to be in complete control about, you know. the dentist always asks the awkward questions when they are already in the person s mouth doing the treatment and i used to always have this thing with my patients when they came in, i always used to try and loosen them up, say, you know, don t worry, i m a pain free dentist. i never feel any pain. and, you know, that, that interaction part was what i loved about dentistry and actually the people interaction part is what i love about politics as well. i was going to say. although some
even at the age of 12. and that s a labour principle now, if you think about all the carnage in the labour party for the last 16 years in scotland. that has constantly stayed with me. hang in there. so you re aged 12, you get this incredibly shocking piece of paper that you opened. do you remember what you did next, was it her that you showed it to? so i took it upstairs, i showed it to my mum. she obviously told my dad about it. and at that point, were they thinking that s what you get if you re an asian trying to break into british politics, or were they as shocked and as appalled as you as a 12 year old boy? they accepted it as our reality because we used to get our car followed when we were going out. we used to get phone calls. i remember once vividly coming back from a family holiday from lossiemouth, my mum was from lossiemouth, she moved here when she was four years old. she lived in lossiemouth, a small seaside village in the north east of scotland. i remember coming back and
pointed to her head, with the message in cut out letters saying, bang, bang, that s all it takes. and it was a message from an organisation called combat 18 at that time, which was a far right organisation that didn t want to see the election of britain s first muslim mp and that was part of a really deliberate attempt to intimidate my family. that really made me want to recoil from the politics, i didn t want to put my own children through that. but interestingly, i decided to go into politics not because of my father, actually, but because of my mother. people often think that my dad s the driving force for my politics. actually, i don t get my politics from my dad, i get my politics from my mum. because? because i always remember throughout all that difficult period, through all the hell that my father was going through, that we were going through as kids, my mum was the constant and the rock through all of that. i remember her always saying, we don t walk away, we don t give up