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| Alan Johnson: The prime minister we almost had | Alan Johnson: The prime minister we almost had |
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| Alan Johnson's assistant tells me she's never seen her boss so chuffed. He was outside the Palace of Westminster, having his photo taken, when he was spotted – by a real celebrity. Johnson, former Labour home secretary, trade union leader, postman, Mod and aspiring rock star, is all smiles as he approaches a minute later. "You'll never guess what happened this morning," he says. "I was having my photograph taken and this guy walks up to me and says: 'Hello, I'm Paul Weller.' Well ..." He grins, and his already pink cheeks flush with delight. "I'm like: 'I know you're fucking Paul Weller.' Christ, it's like saying: 'I'm Paul McCartney.'" That was the good bit, he says. "The bad bit was when two cyclists went past and one of them said: 'Is that Donald Trump?'" | Alan Johnson's assistant tells me she's never seen her boss so chuffed. He was outside the Palace of Westminster, having his photo taken, when he was spotted – by a real celebrity. Johnson, former Labour home secretary, trade union leader, postman, Mod and aspiring rock star, is all smiles as he approaches a minute later. "You'll never guess what happened this morning," he says. "I was having my photograph taken and this guy walks up to me and says: 'Hello, I'm Paul Weller.' Well ..." He grins, and his already pink cheeks flush with delight. "I'm like: 'I know you're fucking Paul Weller.' Christ, it's like saying: 'I'm Paul McCartney.'" That was the good bit, he says. "The bad bit was when two cyclists went past and one of them said: 'Is that Donald Trump?'" |
| We meet at his huge office at No 1 Parliament Street, from where he can tell the time by Big Ben. The room is crammed with memorabilia – a programme from 1967 when QPR won the League Cup and a picture of footballing hero Rodney Marsh, any number of Beatles trinkets (mainly from the Revolver album), a ferocious metal bell presented by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, a Margaret Thatcher nut cracker ("It strikes me as pretty tasteless. The nuts drop down between her legs when you crack them ... Hehehe! I couldn't bring myself to chuck it away.") | We meet at his huge office at No 1 Parliament Street, from where he can tell the time by Big Ben. The room is crammed with memorabilia – a programme from 1967 when QPR won the League Cup and a picture of footballing hero Rodney Marsh, any number of Beatles trinkets (mainly from the Revolver album), a ferocious metal bell presented by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, a Margaret Thatcher nut cracker ("It strikes me as pretty tasteless. The nuts drop down between her legs when you crack them ... Hehehe! I couldn't bring myself to chuck it away.") |
| Two years after controversially resigning as shadow chancellor for personal reasons, Johnson is extremely relaxed – spending lots of time in his Hull constituency, regularly guesting on Andrew Neil's This Week, and at 62, an author. Now he seems to have all the time in the world to indulge his interests. But, it emerges over the next couple of hours, things could easily have been so very different. | Two years after controversially resigning as shadow chancellor for personal reasons, Johnson is extremely relaxed – spending lots of time in his Hull constituency, regularly guesting on Andrew Neil's This Week, and at 62, an author. Now he seems to have all the time in the world to indulge his interests. But, it emerges over the next couple of hours, things could easily have been so very different. |
| Johnson says he has been offered loads of money to tell the story of his political and private life (when he resigned, it emerged that his wife had been having an affair with his police bodyguard), but he was never going to go there. Instead, This Boy tells the quietly remarkable story of his childhood in the slums of London's Notting Hill – there's the stoic, sick mother who died at 42 just as her mother and grandmother did; the feckless father who is caught in bed with Johnson's aunt, walks away from the family and fails to pay support; the heroic 15-year-old sister Linda who brings up 13-year-old Alan when their mother dies, and prevents Alan from being taken into care. The book is about a 1950s and 60s London of Mods and Rockers, gangs, racist kickings and brutal poverty. But more than anything it's a love letter to the mother and sister who raised him – and, to a lesser extent, a hate letter to his father. (In politics, he has always championed women – one of his few rebellious acts was to mock Blair for having appointed Meg Munn as an unpaid minister for women, while in 2004 he described women's pensions as a "national scandal"). | |
| Throughout the book he refers to his parents as Lily and Steve. When I mention it he says he did it deliberately to create distance. "I suppose I wanted to be her biographer. She had a shit life, then died young. We paid for a rose bush to be planted in Kensal Rise cemetery with a plaque and then we found out they took it away five years later because you had to renew the payments and we were off doing other things. So there's nothing left of her. I thought I could recreate her in some way in this book." | Throughout the book he refers to his parents as Lily and Steve. When I mention it he says he did it deliberately to create distance. "I suppose I wanted to be her biographer. She had a shit life, then died young. We paid for a rose bush to be planted in Kensal Rise cemetery with a plaque and then we found out they took it away five years later because you had to renew the payments and we were off doing other things. So there's nothing left of her. I thought I could recreate her in some way in this book." |
| As for Steve, you sense he was simply Steve because Johnson never thought of him as his father. He couldn't understand why his mother was devastated when he left – still can't, really. Johnson knew his father beat his mother, and he just thought good riddance. "He hit Lily when he came back drunk. You could hear the wallops. My sister used to stay up with my mum to try to protect her." | As for Steve, you sense he was simply Steve because Johnson never thought of him as his father. He couldn't understand why his mother was devastated when he left – still can't, really. Johnson knew his father beat his mother, and he just thought good riddance. "He hit Lily when he came back drunk. You could hear the wallops. My sister used to stay up with my mum to try to protect her." |
| This Boy is a gentle, unmacho memoir. For all that Lily and Linda are strong, Johnson paints himself as over-protected and prissy – a far cry from the chirpy cockney he is usually portrayed as. "Don't tell Alan" was his mother's mantra; he was often beaten up by other boys; had long periods off school ill. In his teens he joined a gang and learned how to look after himself, but even then he was still a sensitive lad. When his father turned up at his mother's funeral he didn't feel anger or burning resentment, just embarrassment. You seemed a bit wimpy as a little boy, I say. He smiles. "I think that's a very fair summing-up." | |
| He didn't see his father for another 20 years (the last time he saw him) when his half-sister got married, and Linda pressurised him to go to the wedding. Again it was a painful experience. "It was terrible," he says quietly. "Oppressed feelings ... just couldn't face up to it. It was, once again, excruciatingly embarrassing. There's this thing that if someone is your father you're supposed to be pleased to be in their company, have lots to chat about, go for a pint, but there was no way I wanted to do that. There was just too much history there for me to cope with." The strange thing is, he says, Linda was even angrier with Steve (as a little girl she had tried to stab him with her penknife) but she dealt with the situation better. "No one was more hostile to him for what he had done to our mother than Linda, but she's magnanimous. I should have been magnanimous. I should have been more like my sister." | He didn't see his father for another 20 years (the last time he saw him) when his half-sister got married, and Linda pressurised him to go to the wedding. Again it was a painful experience. "It was terrible," he says quietly. "Oppressed feelings ... just couldn't face up to it. It was, once again, excruciatingly embarrassing. There's this thing that if someone is your father you're supposed to be pleased to be in their company, have lots to chat about, go for a pint, but there was no way I wanted to do that. There was just too much history there for me to cope with." The strange thing is, he says, Linda was even angrier with Steve (as a little girl she had tried to stab him with her penknife) but she dealt with the situation better. "No one was more hostile to him for what he had done to our mother than Linda, but she's magnanimous. I should have been magnanimous. I should have been more like my sister." |
| Would he cope differently today with that situation? "No. No, no, no, no. You should be wiser and more mature ..." His father died in 2004. Did he go to his funeral? "No." Did he feel anything when he died? "No, nope. Nothing. Nothing at all." | Would he cope differently today with that situation? "No. No, no, no, no. You should be wiser and more mature ..." His father died in 2004. Did he go to his funeral? "No." Did he feel anything when he died? "No, nope. Nothing. Nothing at all." |
| He pauses, and says perhaps he should be more forgiving. "Christ, you have to realise that relationships break up. I've been involved in relationships that break up, so you can't hold that against the man." Johnson has been married twice, and has four children. By the age of 20, he was married to his first wife, Judith, a father of three working for the post office and living in a council house, a regular Joe. | He pauses, and says perhaps he should be more forgiving. "Christ, you have to realise that relationships break up. I've been involved in relationships that break up, so you can't hold that against the man." Johnson has been married twice, and has four children. By the age of 20, he was married to his first wife, Judith, a father of three working for the post office and living in a council house, a regular Joe. |
| This Boy is also a paean to council housing. He believes his mother, who had a heart condition, died earlier than she should have because of the squalid conditions they were forced to live in. Ironically, it was only after she died that he and Linda were granted the council flat Lily had fought for unsuccessfully for 17 years. And it was the flat, as much as anything, that allowed him his start in adult life – somewhere warm, clean and dignified to live in. At 15, he left his grammar school, and stacked shelves for Tesco, dreaming of his future as a rock star. He almost got himself a record deal with his band the Area and almost joined a successful covers band, before reality intervened. | This Boy is also a paean to council housing. He believes his mother, who had a heart condition, died earlier than she should have because of the squalid conditions they were forced to live in. Ironically, it was only after she died that he and Linda were granted the council flat Lily had fought for unsuccessfully for 17 years. And it was the flat, as much as anything, that allowed him his start in adult life – somewhere warm, clean and dignified to live in. At 15, he left his grammar school, and stacked shelves for Tesco, dreaming of his future as a rock star. He almost got himself a record deal with his band the Area and almost joined a successful covers band, before reality intervened. |
| His family background and trade union activities (he was on strike for seven weeks as a postal worker) had politicised him. In his early 20s he was reading Das Kapital, writing songs about his mother's undocumented life, and had become a branch official of the Communication Workers Union (CWU). | His family background and trade union activities (he was on strike for seven weeks as a postal worker) had politicised him. In his early 20s he was reading Das Kapital, writing songs about his mother's undocumented life, and had become a branch official of the Communication Workers Union (CWU). |
| When Margaret Thatcher introduced the right-to-buy, Johnson declined. "My neighbours thought I was mad not to buy my house." By now he was general secretary of the CWU and it opposed the sale of council houses. He says he hates the way council houses, and those who live in them, have been demonised. "It's now like you're a loser in life if you're in a council house. I saw a letter vis-a-vis bedroom tax in my local paper, and it said well they've had the right to buy since the 80s, if they've not bought their own council house and they're still council house tenants after all this time they deserve everything they get. When I was a kid everybody wanted a council house. My mum could never afford a house, and lots of pople didn't want a mortgage hanging around their neck." | When Margaret Thatcher introduced the right-to-buy, Johnson declined. "My neighbours thought I was mad not to buy my house." By now he was general secretary of the CWU and it opposed the sale of council houses. He says he hates the way council houses, and those who live in them, have been demonised. "It's now like you're a loser in life if you're in a council house. I saw a letter vis-a-vis bedroom tax in my local paper, and it said well they've had the right to buy since the 80s, if they've not bought their own council house and they're still council house tenants after all this time they deserve everything they get. When I was a kid everybody wanted a council house. My mum could never afford a house, and lots of pople didn't want a mortgage hanging around their neck." |
| But didn't New Labour reinforce the Thatcherite attitude to council housing? "I think we did embrace that culture, that's right. No, we didn't do enough for council housing." | But didn't New Labour reinforce the Thatcherite attitude to council housing? "I think we did embrace that culture, that's right. No, we didn't do enough for council housing." |
| I ask what kind of house he lives in today. He looks embarrassed, and doesn't quite make eye contact. I'm not sure why, then I realise he thinks I'm digging into his private life. In 1991 he married his second wife, Laura, and they have a 12-year-old son. Since his resignation, Johnson has not talked about family life, and has no intention of doing so now. I had read that he and Laura were back together, but he shakes his head. "My situation is very complicated and if you don't mind, Simon, I won't go into it. I rent, but I do have a house." | |
| Johnson, now 62, was handpicked by Blair to stand for parliament – a likable trade union leader with impressive communication skills. He rose up the ranks quickly – secretary of state for work and pensions, trade and industry, education, health, and finally home secretary. As the election approached, there were rumours that Johnson might stand for the leadership against Gordon Brown – many Blairites thought he did the human stuff more convincingly. Johnson says this was never going to be the case, because Brown had performed admirably on the world stage when the global economy went into meltdown. "That would have been an ignoble thing to do, a shitty thing to do, to a guy who had been grappling with these issues. I don't think it would have worked any way. And it certainly wouldn't have been me who led the charge." | Johnson, now 62, was handpicked by Blair to stand for parliament – a likable trade union leader with impressive communication skills. He rose up the ranks quickly – secretary of state for work and pensions, trade and industry, education, health, and finally home secretary. As the election approached, there were rumours that Johnson might stand for the leadership against Gordon Brown – many Blairites thought he did the human stuff more convincingly. Johnson says this was never going to be the case, because Brown had performed admirably on the world stage when the global economy went into meltdown. "That would have been an ignoble thing to do, a shitty thing to do, to a guy who had been grappling with these issues. I don't think it would have worked any way. And it certainly wouldn't have been me who led the charge." |
| Some years earlier, in 2007, asked on Desert Island Discs about his ambitions to lead Labour, he said he didn't think he was up to it; that he didn't have the required qualities. In retrospect, he says, it wasn't the smartest of answers. "My special advisers were tearing their hair out, but I like to answer questions truthfully. Now by the time I'd done two years as health secretary and a year as home secretary I thought I did have the qualities to do it." | Some years earlier, in 2007, asked on Desert Island Discs about his ambitions to lead Labour, he said he didn't think he was up to it; that he didn't have the required qualities. In retrospect, he says, it wasn't the smartest of answers. "My special advisers were tearing their hair out, but I like to answer questions truthfully. Now by the time I'd done two years as health secretary and a year as home secretary I thought I did have the qualities to do it." |
| Did he regret saying it? "I suppose I did. I got lots of letters from fellow autodidacts, people who had come from similar backgrounds, saying: 'You let us down because you made it sound as if it was because you hadn't been to university and you'd left school at 15 that you lacked the confidence to do it, and you should have spoken up for people from that background.' I thought I don't want to carry the weight of the whole working classes on my shoulders, thanks very much. I don't purport to be a working-class hero, but I did think, yeah probably they're right. I should have given more of a politician's answer." | Did he regret saying it? "I suppose I did. I got lots of letters from fellow autodidacts, people who had come from similar backgrounds, saying: 'You let us down because you made it sound as if it was because you hadn't been to university and you'd left school at 15 that you lacked the confidence to do it, and you should have spoken up for people from that background.' I thought I don't want to carry the weight of the whole working classes on my shoulders, thanks very much. I don't purport to be a working-class hero, but I did think, yeah probably they're right. I should have given more of a politician's answer." |
| Actually, he says casually, there was a time when he did come very close to standing for the leadership. "There was one period when we were negotiating because it was a hung parliament and the Liberal Democrats had talked to the Tories and it had broken down on the Sunday over the Alternative Vote, and Sunday night/Monday they came to talk to us. It looked as if we might form a coalition with the Lib Dems. The condition they laid down was that Gordon had to go and we all knew that anyway, he was going to step down, and I thought, well if there's a leadership election in these circumstances I'll stand because it would need someone just to hold things together for three years and then hand over to the younger generation." I'm open-mouthed while he continues to recount this story as if he's just telling me what he had for tea last night. | Actually, he says casually, there was a time when he did come very close to standing for the leadership. "There was one period when we were negotiating because it was a hung parliament and the Liberal Democrats had talked to the Tories and it had broken down on the Sunday over the Alternative Vote, and Sunday night/Monday they came to talk to us. It looked as if we might form a coalition with the Lib Dems. The condition they laid down was that Gordon had to go and we all knew that anyway, he was going to step down, and I thought, well if there's a leadership election in these circumstances I'll stand because it would need someone just to hold things together for three years and then hand over to the younger generation." I'm open-mouthed while he continues to recount this story as if he's just telling me what he had for tea last night. |
| Has he ever told anyone this before? "No, I don't think so." How close exactly was he to standing? "I decided that night, the Monday night, I tossed and turned. We'd talked to them about proportional representation, and Andrew Adonis was leading our approach with David Laws for the Lib Dems, and we'd worked out our policy on all these things. I was asked, as still the home secretary, would you bend on ID cards, and we'd put all our bits in, and we thought we could get a deal here. Lots of our people, David Blunkett prominent among them, were saying no way should we be in the coalition. Gordon was really keen that we stayed in power. He was out of the talks. He knew one of the conditions would be for him to step down. We'd got our second worst defeat since universal suffrage – Gordon is a lot of things, but he's not a stupid man." | Has he ever told anyone this before? "No, I don't think so." How close exactly was he to standing? "I decided that night, the Monday night, I tossed and turned. We'd talked to them about proportional representation, and Andrew Adonis was leading our approach with David Laws for the Lib Dems, and we'd worked out our policy on all these things. I was asked, as still the home secretary, would you bend on ID cards, and we'd put all our bits in, and we thought we could get a deal here. Lots of our people, David Blunkett prominent among them, were saying no way should we be in the coalition. Gordon was really keen that we stayed in power. He was out of the talks. He knew one of the conditions would be for him to step down. We'd got our second worst defeat since universal suffrage – Gordon is a lot of things, but he's not a stupid man." |
| Johnson says it was obvious then that if somebody from Labour was going to lead the coalition it would be one of the three MPs in the big jobs. "I was home secretary. David Miliband was foreign secretary, Alistair Darling was chancellor. It wasn't the right way for David – or Ed Miliband, or whoever else was going to come in – to take over. It was a shit job to be done for a period of time. | Johnson says it was obvious then that if somebody from Labour was going to lead the coalition it would be one of the three MPs in the big jobs. "I was home secretary. David Miliband was foreign secretary, Alistair Darling was chancellor. It wasn't the right way for David – or Ed Miliband, or whoever else was going to come in – to take over. It was a shit job to be done for a period of time. |
| "On the Monday we really felt there was a deal there. By the Tuesday morning the Lib Dems came in and it was obvious they'd done the deal. I don't blame them for this. They played their cards right. They actually said to us we want you to accept AV without any referendum, then to have a referendum on a proper proportional representation system down the line, and we said you can't change the voting system without consulting the people. When the Tories said they would concede on the referendum, they went back to them. But that Monday night, I went to bed and decided to throw my hat in the ring." | |
| Would he have been a good leader of the coalition? "I think I would have been OK for those circumstances, yeah; to get the party through that period." | Would he have been a good leader of the coalition? "I think I would have been OK for those circumstances, yeah; to get the party through that period." |
| But, of course, history didn't work out that way. The Lib Dems got into bed with the Tories, Johnson became shadow chancellor and visibly struggled in a post for the first time (ridiculed for not knowing his VAT and national insurance figures), the Miliband brothers stood against each other in a Biblical battle, and the Labour party was ripped apart again. | But, of course, history didn't work out that way. The Lib Dems got into bed with the Tories, Johnson became shadow chancellor and visibly struggled in a post for the first time (ridiculed for not knowing his VAT and national insurance figures), the Miliband brothers stood against each other in a Biblical battle, and the Labour party was ripped apart again. |
| Johnson was always close to David, whom he saw as the logical long-term leader of the Labour party. He says David was in his office only the other day, and he told him he was right to get out of politics. "I didn't try to talk him out of it. He could never have come back into frontline politics without the Kremlinology between him and his brother or that story of him having the crown snatched away from him. David would only have had to have blinked or said something in an interview that was misconstrued as attacking his brother." Will their relationship ever recover? "I think they're a pretty strong family, but who knows in that situation?" | |
| I ask him if the young Johnson could have imagined a 21st-century Britain governed by an Eton elite. He grimaces. "No, I definitely would have felt those days would be past." He trawls in his drawer for figures to prove his point. "It's absolutely extraordinary, where the fuck is that ... yes ..." He finally finds his killer fact. "Five institutions, Eton, Westminster, St Paul's boys, St Paul's Girls and [state-funded] Hills Road sixth-form college in Cambridge send more students to Oxford and Cambridge each year than nearly 2,000 comprehensive schools and FE colleges. That's awful." | I ask him if the young Johnson could have imagined a 21st-century Britain governed by an Eton elite. He grimaces. "No, I definitely would have felt those days would be past." He trawls in his drawer for figures to prove his point. "It's absolutely extraordinary, where the fuck is that ... yes ..." He finally finds his killer fact. "Five institutions, Eton, Westminster, St Paul's boys, St Paul's Girls and [state-funded] Hills Road sixth-form college in Cambridge send more students to Oxford and Cambridge each year than nearly 2,000 comprehensive schools and FE colleges. That's awful." |
| As he talks, I can't help thinking how history might have played out differently – Johnson, a unifying figure, holding together a Lib-Lab coalition like a war cabinet. If he had taken over, what state does he think I would have found him in today? "I'd just about be handing over to the next generation. I'd be pretty frazzled, it would be a tough period, but I think we'd be better positioned." He mentions the stagnant economy, the impossible Tory pledge to get rid of the deficit, unemployment. "When they came in, growth was 1.8%, really respectable. They inherited growth and delivered a recession. And yet they act as if they inherited recession and delivered growth. It's a disaster. So I don't think you would have found that situation if you were talking to Prime Minister Johnson." | As he talks, I can't help thinking how history might have played out differently – Johnson, a unifying figure, holding together a Lib-Lab coalition like a war cabinet. If he had taken over, what state does he think I would have found him in today? "I'd just about be handing over to the next generation. I'd be pretty frazzled, it would be a tough period, but I think we'd be better positioned." He mentions the stagnant economy, the impossible Tory pledge to get rid of the deficit, unemployment. "When they came in, growth was 1.8%, really respectable. They inherited growth and delivered a recession. And yet they act as if they inherited recession and delivered growth. It's a disaster. So I don't think you would have found that situation if you were talking to Prime Minister Johnson." |
| This Boy: A memoir of a childhood by Alan Johnson is published by Bantam Press on 9 May at £16.99. To order a copy for £13.59 with free UK p&p, call 0330 333 6846, or visit guardianbookshop.co.uk | This Boy: A memoir of a childhood by Alan Johnson is published by Bantam Press on 9 May at £16.99. To order a copy for £13.59 with free UK p&p, call 0330 333 6846, or visit guardianbookshop.co.uk |