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Liz Anderson

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The entrepreneur’s art: buying, building, selling

Judi Bevan

Wednesday, 6th February 2008

Judi Bevan meets David Young, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet before chairing Cable & Wireless and creating his own successful private-equity business

Few 75-year-olds supply and programme their grandchildren’s computers or keep in touch with the younger generation by text. But Lord Young of Graffham — the businessman who was parachuted into the cabinet as secretary of state for employment by Margaret Thatcher and later headed the Department of Trade and Industry — is one of a rare breed of septuagenarian technophiles.

‘I have owned a PC since 1977 and I bought the first Apple in this country,’ he claims, with the boyishly pleased air of someone who stole a march on his peers.

David Young bubbles with energy and mischief — and is not averse to stirring the pudding. Recently he criticised a ‘paid to fail’ £5 million-plus payout for Harris Jones, the former international chief executive of Cable & Wireless — the telecoms company Young chaired after resigning from government in 1989. He served as deputy chairman of the Conservative party until Thatcher was ousted in 1990.

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