I love Thatcher – but I WON’T be running for London Mayor as a Tory
Plumbing tycoon takes on the ‘posh politicians’ But the top Tory donor will stand as independent Anti-Brexit campaigner would only put Boris in charge of a broom
CHARLIE Mullins, the plumber who has made a £75 million fortune from stopcocks and blocked pipes, could be forgiven for retiring to one of his luxury villas on the Costa del Sol after turning 65 at the end of last year.
But instead, the self-made man – who grew up on a council estate and left school at 15 to pursue his passion for plumbing – is about to embark on a new challenge: running to be elected as Mayor of London.
If Mullins wins the 2020 election, he would succeed Labour’s Sadiq Khan. ‘I’m not here knocking him,’ Mullins insists, before doing just that, bashing Khan for failing to ‘step up to the mark’, and criticising him for not having a ‘big enough character’.
‘I believe that a businessman is better to be Mayor of London with the knowledge he’s got than one of those posh politicians.’
Perhaps Khan shouldn’t be the only politician watching his back. As a major donor to the Conservative Party and an active anti-Brexit campaigner, Mullins has already established himself as an influential character in national politics. The ambition and self-belief needed for an even higher office are not in short supply.
And unlike Khan, Mullins could not be accused of lacking personality. He is a flamboyant sort, with a Rod Stewart-style spiky hairdo, orange tan, blue suit and blue Pimlico Plumbers tie, neckwear that hints at his political hue.
Sitting back on a black leather sofa, sipping a cup of tea – with three sugars – he is unequivocal. ‘F ****** ’ell, I love Thatcher,’ he says, breaking off mid-sentence and nodding his head towards his treasured statuette of the late former Prime Minister that is perched on his office fridge.
Such is his passion for the Iron Lady that Mullins instructed his staff to wear black armbands when she died in 2013. Pimlico Plumbers’ vans, known across the capital for their themed number plates – BOG 1, F1 USH and S1 NKS – were emblazoned with portraits of her on their doors in another act of homage to his heroine.
Mullins set up his company from the basement of an estate agent’s office in 1979, the same year Thatcher came to power.
He says he was inspired to launch his company by her ‘passion for private enterprise’. Despite his admiration for her and other former Tory grandees, like ‘Dave and George’, Mullins is planning to run for London Mayor as an independent candidate – even though his firm has donated £65,000 to the party since 2015.
Perhaps that is because Mullins does not see eye to eye with the party’s current leader, Theresa May. Or, in his words: ‘We’re not drinking from the same teapot. I don’t know what planet she’s on.’
Mullins and May are not even drinking from the same champagne bottle. Shortly before Christmas he was barred from attending the Tories’ ‘Black and White’ fundraising ball, he says, despite offering to buy a table for £15,000, because of his criticism of the leader.
‘Theresa May had no right,’ he says, still seething. ‘That money, it’s not about her. And I was told by some Ministers that they thought she shouldn’t have done that.’
The incident came shortly after he suggested that if May was a chief executive, she would have been sacked. He also called on her Cabinet colleagues to ‘grow a pair and oust her’. Mrs May could have taken some solace from the fact he described Jeremy Corbyn as a ‘t***’ on BBC Radio 4 last year.
Nearly 40 years after launch, Pimlico Plumbers has branched out – Mullins now offers electrical, roofing and locksmith services. The firm pulls in revenues of £30 million a year, and employs nearly 500 people. And Pimlico House – the South London headquarters of his company – is designed in his image. The reception walls are plastered with signed messages from his celebrity clients – Hugh Laurie, Michael McIntyre and Keira Knightley, to name a few. Photographs of Mullins with Theresa May – in happier days – and Prince Charles also hang proudly in the reception.
The office has its own gym and roof terrace. It boasts a life-size model of Prince Charles enjoying a bubble bath, with the Duchess of Cornwall – wearing nothing but a towel – standing alongside him. Mullins’ obsessions with all things plumbing have paid off. He is believed to have built up a personal wealth of around £75million. The father of four, who married his second wife Julie in Las Vegas, has two Bentleys and a £5million Belgravia home in addition to two villas in the Costa del Sol. He is also scathing of the Prime Minister’s ability to manage people, suggesting she has allowed one colleague in particular to get away with undermining her.
‘Boris mugs her off every week, don’t he?’ says Mullins, referring to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. ‘She needs to be strong and put people in their place. If he’d done that at Pimlico, he’d be washing vans. Or I’d put him in charge of a broom.’
Mullins’ views on Johnson are complicated. As a vocal supporter of the Remain campaign, he recently accused Johnson of ‘talking complete b ******* ’ when the latter claimed the UK could save even more than £350 million a week to spend on the NHS after Brexit. He also feels Johnson lacks ‘common sense’ – an attribute he intends to put at the centre of his campaign to be London Mayor.
Overall, however, he says he was impressed by Johnson’s performance as Mayor of London between 2008 and 2016. ‘I gotta be honest with you, I thought he done a great job,’ he says. ‘I mean, silly as a ******** , you know what I mean? But he made changes I believe were for the better – the bikes, the buses.’
Mullins is lining up a number of eye-catching policies himself. Free travel for apprentices – which he hopes will reduce crime because ‘people in jobs don’t go round stabbing people’. Faster airport expansion, though he doesn’t specify where: ‘All it needs is someone to bang a few heads together.’
And a solution to the housing crisis: ‘I don’t know about building houses, but I do know they cost money. And I do know that if you’ve got a business guy involved with it, and he’s got a good business brain, we’ll find the money from somewhere.’
As a blond bombshell with an entrepreneurial background and shoot-from-the-hip manner, Mullins is inevitably attracting comparisons with the businessman who shocked the world after being elected the 45th President of the United States in 2016.
He is keen to reassure London’s voters. ‘Some people are trying to say to me: “You think you’re becoming a bit of a Donald Trump,”’ he says. ‘No, I ain’t. I don’t agree with how he carries on.’
I don’t know what planet Theresa May is on. She had no right to ban me from Tories’ ball