It was Kanishka Narayan’s Welsh teacher Mr Thomas who, he says, spotted his potential. He was just 12 years old and had moved to Cardiff with his parents and brother from Behar in the east of India.. His teacher at Cathays High School in Cardiff, which he joined in year seven, told him he should apply to Eton, the private school that’s spawned 20 prime ministers and numerous cabinet members.
“He had this irrational belief that I was somehow extremely smart. Cathays at the time had an intake of friends of mine from Eritrea, Iraq and Syria and I’d just come from India and so for a Welsh teacher teaching Welsh to say it was…well,” he laughs. “I remember sitting upstairs in a classroom and him saying ‘I think you should apply to some private schools’.
“I had a total naivety, given I was a newbie, and I had to go up to Mr Phillips, the headteacher, and he was breaking up a fight, and it was the last day I had to get him to sign the form, but you don’t speak to the headteacher unless you’re in trouble, so I had to ask him. He must have thought it was some bizarre situation.”
READ MORE: The mum who found herself homeless with two kids and a £23 sofa
READ MORE: The one key reform a Welsh peer thinks the House of Lords needs
He went and did the entrance exams and was accepted with a full scholarship, giving him the chance to not only study at a renowned school, but a bedroom of his own. His brother, a year older, was too late to apply and remained at Cathays High. “We had this amazing thing of probably the closest experiment of how education can differ. It’s amazing because at the time we were living in this tiny one bed place on Bedford Street, off City Road [in Cardiff]. My brother and I used to sleep on the floor together, and suddenly I had a room to myself for the first time at Eton and the entire experience was insane. It was also a kind of very accidental privilege because I didn’t fully comprehend that stories people infer when they hear Eton or frankly even Cathays or south Wales.”
Kanishka Narayan on the night of the general election -Credit:John Myers
He went on to study politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and has worked both as an economist and policy adviser in the civil service and as a venture capitalist working in the City and in the US. Along the way, he gained an MBA from Stanford University in the USA.
Now it is Westminster Kanishka calls home, for half the week at least. Since July, the 34-year-old has been the Vale of Glamorgan’s newest MP, having claimed the scalp of Wales’ former secretary of state, Alun Cairns in the 2024 general election. He was one of the candidates selected earliest by Labour giving him time to knock on 50,000 doors and meet more than 22,000 people in the run up to the general election – even those numbers are a fraction of the 75,000 electors.
He was elected with 38.7% of the vote, compared to Mr Cairns’ 29.5%. He doesn’t believe it was simply a switch to Labour, nor a move away from the Conservatives, but a bit of both that led to the seat, traditionally one of Wales’ most interesting to watch, turning red. In being elected, Kanishka became its first MP of colour.
The former civil servant has spent the last eight years working in the City and as a venture capitalist in the United States. Entering elected politics wasn’t on his radar, he says, but he knows the ropes. He formerly worked in the Cabinet Office in the Cameron-Clegg administration and was Liz Truss’ strategy adviser at Defra, also working with Rory Stewart. A route from civil service to politics isn’t a traditional route. “I think being a civil servant is a pretty bad way to try and become an MP,” he laughs.
“There are a number of us in this cohort and I think part of the reason is that’s because all of us felt a deep frustration that we didn’t feel a) the country wasn’t going in a right or clear direction and b) how government works and an understanding of how you make things happen,” he said.
Kanishka Narayan looks on as Conservative Alun Cairns makes his concession speech -Credit:John Myers
A member of Labour for 18 years, his parents joined the party as one of their first things after moving to Wales. Not, he says, particularly for political ambitions, but because it was a way to feel as part of a “greater collective”. “My Labour affiliation was inherited but the
“Politics as a profession wasn’t at all in my family, like a lot of immigrant families they are quite sceptical of it. They worked in hospitality, service and ran a petrol station on Newport Road before retraining as lawyers and setting up a practice on City Road and for them, my brother did amazingly as a GP, they wanted me to go do something like that. Politics as a profession wasn’t inherited but my parents when they moved to Wales, one of the first things they did was become members of the Labour Party. And it wasn’t because they thought they were going to run for anything but because something about that group and meetings in Plasnewydd in the tennis club was the right forum for people to come and feel like they were part of a greater collective with the values they felt part of.
Kanishka Narayan at the election count where he was named MP for the Vale of Glamorgan -Credit:John Myers
Now, seeing their son in the Commons, there is, “temporary concern”. “I think they feel temporary concern but also feel this sense that for a long time I was very interested in public policy and so I suspect parents when they see kids grow up with a particular passion it’s nice to see them turn to their passion,” he said.
His brother, is however, still the one ticking more boxes. “He’s so responsible and my brother is a GP, married, he’s settled, very serious and there’s very little uncertainty in his life,” he says. For the latest politics news in Wales sign up to our newsletter here.
Since being voted in, he’s also been given a position as parliamentary private secretary to environment secretary Steve Reed. “I feel really grateful I can help in a department that I know and in a context I’ve experienced, but I’m under no illusions my first and exclusive job is to do right by the Vale of Glamorgan. The main thing for me now is the idealism of what I pitched in the campaign, which is that you can use the levers of parliament to actually make a difference in Barry and across the Vale, how that works in practice. That’s the thing I’m trying to work out right now.
But as the Vale of Glamorgan MP, the main thing he is being asked in the corridors of power at the moment is about Gavin and Stacey. “Everyone has been asking if I have a cameo or if I’ve been on site. Everyone identifies Vale of Glamorgan and Barry Island with Gavin and Stacey,” he said.
Kanishka Narayan the day after the election, watched on by then leader of Welsh Labour Vaughan Gething and MP for Monmouthshire Catherine Fookes -Credit:Gareth Everett/Huw Evans Agency
Away from politics, asked how he would spend a day off, the new MP said he would chose to go have breakfast at St Bride’s Major before a long walk at Ogmore by Sea before an afternoon with a pint at the Blue Anchor before playing an hour or two of cricket. “I’m middle order, second change bowler and number five or six batsman” – before a nice glass of wine.