Sir Gulam Noon’s office overlooking St James’ Park, London, is crammed with photographs of the Curry King and his friends. On one side of his desk there are pictures of Gordon Brown clasping his hand. On the other side Sir Gulam is shown confiding in Tony Blair.

There are photographs of him striding along beside the Prince of Wales and of him meeting the Queen. “I told her to call me Noon, but she said, ‘No, you have a knighthood, you are Sir Gulam’.”

In the corner are his cricket bats — more than 100 signed by the greatest cricketers of the past 50 years. “Cricket sums up everything that is best about Britain: fair play, a stiff upper lip and teamwork,” he says. Above them are the honorary degrees that he has been awarded from several British universities.

He is the ultimate Anglophile. The man who invented Bombay mix and chicken tikka masala for the British also loves Sunday roasts, the Changing of the Guard, P. G. Wodehouse and village greens.

After his father died when he was 10, he worked in the family sweet shop in Bombay until he had enough experience to start a chain. Within 40 years of arriving in London and falling in love with Piccadilly Circus he was producing a quarter of a million curries a day for British supermarkets and turning over £100 million a year.

He supports England, rather than India, in Test matches but he has never lost his love of his birthplace, to which he regularly returns. This week he was staying at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel when it was attacked by terrorists.

Sir Gulam had to barricade himself into his suite on the third floor for more than nine hours before being rescued by a fireman in a crane. “I could see the smoke coming along the corridor. The gunfire was continuous all night. We saw two terrorists on our floor. It was a very frightening experience, you had no idea whether they were going to shoot down the door and enter.”

As a moderate Muslim he is horrified by the rise of extremism in Islam. “This isn’t real Islam — there is no religion or caste or creed that believes it is right to terrorise people.”

The British Government should, in his view, be much harder on extremists. “Britain is a soft target because we are mollycoddling these people. You start mollycoddling them and they take it as a sign of weakness. I have told all the Home Secretaries you send 50 imams back home and that will send a very strong signal. Forget about their human rights — what about our human rights? They don’t fit in my society.”

Sir Gulam also has a strong message for the Labour Party. He is about to publish his autobiography, Noon, with a View, which will set out in full his version of the cash-for-peerages affair. He is one of the people who gave a loan to the Labour Party and was then nominated for elevation to the House of Lords. He was so horrified to find himself accused of trying to buy an honour that he removed his name from the list. It never occurred to him to ask for a peerage in return for his loan.

“If the Government think you are a capable person, they will give it to you. You don’t demand it,” he says.

In his book, to be released next month, he makes clear how shoddily he believes he was treated. He describes how he lost his temper with both Mr Blair and his aide, Ruth Turner. “My name had been dragged through the mud, my reputation was in danger of being ruined and none of it was my fault. Why was I now facing a police investigation? Was this how loyalty to the party was rewarded? I was being hung out to dry. I should have been supported by the most powerful people in the land; instead I was being investigated for political manipulation.”

Sir Gulam says that Miss Turner, who was director of government relations at the time, tried to pacify him. “Ruth said that they would find me a safe seat to become an MP.” He refused. Mr Blair invited him to his flat in No 10 and told Sir Gulam that he should still go to the Lords. “You may not want to go but I want to send you there,” he said.

Miss Turner, who now works at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, strongly denied Sir Gulam’s claim. “I think Gulam could, should and would make an excellent contribution in Parliament but I am adamant that that there is not the slightest chance I left him with the impression that I could get him a safe seat.” She pointed out that she was on police bail at the time. “I can’t tell you how careful I would have been,” she said.

Why did he ever get involved with lending money to the Labour Party? “Which human being, whether a businessman or a bureaucrat, would not like to hobnob with the politicians who are in power? Power is an aphrodisiac and power ultimately lies in Westminster,” he said.

The cash-for-peerages row was far less gentlemanly than cricket and Sir Gulam was left to flounder. “I don’t know who betrayed whom. But what wrong have I done? They asked me to give the money on a loan, which I gave them. They asked me not to disclose it, which I did not.”

Sir Gulam says that he mentioned his loan on the form that he originally filled in for the Lords Appointments Commission — but then Lord Levy rang him up. “He told me, ‘You are not supposed to disclose it’ so I got the form back. Foolish man that I am I got another one and sent it back without the entry. Lord Stevenson [who used to head the commission] said that if I had not removed the information I would have been in.”

He does not understand why the Labour Party would want to cover up the loans. “What is there to cover up? Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have taken loans. Yet now I go to my home in India and a chap in the street says, ‘Sir, you have so much money, you are so popular, why did you take money from the Labour Party?’.”

His business did not suffer as he fought to clear his name “but my family suffered, my wife was distraught. I’m a hard cookie but even I was upset. I was angry and disappointed. I marched into 10 Downing Street and said, ‘You’ve got to get me out of this’ .”

He has since converted his loan into a donation and insists that he still supports Labour, but he will think very carefully before making any further gifts. “The damage is done to people like me. Others will be thinking — should we give money to the party if this is the way that the world then treats us?”

Despite his experience, Sir Gulam has no bitterness towards Britain. “This country has given me everything,” he says. “Of course there is racism but I tell my own community that there is racism in their own country. There is a famous saying in India that when an elephant marches through a village a dog may bark behind it, but the elephant never turns around because it is confident. You just have to march on.”

His love affair with Britain started when he arrived in 1966 with £50 in his pocket. Everyone was celebrating. “They had won the World Cup. I left a £10 note in a shop and the shop assistant had kept it for me when I returned three days later. The English have always been fair.”

Now the Duchess of Cornwall comes for lunch and he discusses faith with the Prince of Wales. “We talk about organic things because I am a food man. He eats curries provided there is no garlic or ginger in them.”

Although Sir Gulam says that “this is still the best country in the world” he thinks that the British have become ruder since he arrived. “They are boorish. I don’t like all this binge drinking. My daughter was mugged a few days back. There is unemployment and drugs — these are very sad things.”

British people should be more confident about their identity, he says. “I love the pluralistic society but you have gone a little too far . . . You can’t just put hundreds of thousands of people on this small island. There is a limit. I do not want a situation where you give fuel to the BNP.”

He feels that it is his responsibility as a Muslim to tackle extremism. “My view is if you don’t like this country — get out.” He says that immigrants must learn English and he does not think that schoolgirls should wear veils. “Modesty is important but I disagree with people covering their eyes.”

In his opinion ministers should also be tougher on the unemployed. “Why doesn’t the Government say, ‘Stop sleeping all day’? Our dole system is making people parasites. There should be a cut-off point.”

Sir Gulam is pragmatic about the recession. “We have to tighten our belts for at least 18 months.” He agrees with the Government’s fiscal stimulus. “If you are starving today you have to eat today and don’t think about tomorrow.” But he says that the Chancellor should not use a rise in National Insurance to pay for a cut in VAT. “It is just another burden on businesses that are already suffering so much.”

He has also told Mr Brown that it was a mistake to impose a levy on non-domicile residents such as him. “It’s an imposition of a tax on people who have created wealth for this country. Tony Blair refused to do it.”

It was Mr Blair who attracted Sir Gulam to the Labour Party, but he does not blame Mr Brown for wanting the top job. “It’s human nature: power is never given, it is snatched,” he says. And with that he is off to practice some ground strokes at his cricket pitch in the country.

CV

— Born January 24, 1936, Bombay

— Studied accountancy each morning before school and worked in his family sweetshop

— He was married to Mohini in 1998 and has two daughters, Zarmin and Zeenat, by his first marriage

— Joined the family company in Bombay, Royal Sweets, aged 17. Moved to London in 1972 and set up the Bombay Halwa confectionery business in Southall, West London. Opened Noon Foods in 1988, selling frozen foods to Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Morrisons. Company orders 80 tonnes of chicken a week

— The creator of chicken tikka masala, named Britain’s national dish by Robin Cook

— Member, Surrey County Cricket Club

QUICK FIRE

Sachin Tendulkar or Don Bradman? Bradman, undoubtedly

Chicken tikka masala or fish and chips? Chicken tikka masala

Hollywood or Bollywood? Hollywood. I don’t see the point of monkeys dancing

London or Bombay? London

Tony Blair or Gordon Brown? Both in their way

Beer or bubbles? I’m a teetotaller

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