Alan Johnson followed Alan Clark into the House of Commons because he didn't know where to go.
Clark looked nonchalant, while Johnson felt overwhelmed with his new role.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Those days you could drive in through the gate. Yeah, there was a couple of coppers there.
Alan Johnson
Nobody even searched the car, I think. I drove there from where we lived in Crystal Palace. So it wasn't very long, sort of 20-minute drive. I went down to that underground garage. And next to the space I parked in, next to it was an open-top, two-seated sports car. And out of it unfolded Alan Clark.
Alastair Campbell
I mean, I say unfolded. He's Alistair's great friend. Don't get him going, Alan. Don't get him going. There's one of his 11 cars. Alistair coincidentally tried to give him a Bentley. Has he told you the story?
Alan Johnson
No, no, really? Were you pals with that?
Alastair Campbell
I was quite pals with Alistair, yeah.
Alan Johnson
I never met him, but I followed him into the Commons. And he, as I say, leapt out of that car, had nothing. He'd come back into Parliament in the 97 election. Remember, he'd lost his seat. 92 came back. Chelsea. For Kensington and Chelsea. Chelsea, yeah. Kensington and Chelsea, where I was born. Could have been my MP. And put his hands in his pockets, nonchalantly ran his hands through his head. I had briefcases, documents, boxes, you know. I didn't know where I was going. This was a completely new world for me. I'd been to the Commons, yeah, but not through that member's entrance and the little cloakroom with the bit of ribbon to hang his sword and all that. And I thought, I don't know where I'm going. I recognize Alan Clark. I'll just follow him. And I followed him up the escalator. And he's almost whistling. It wasn't quiet, but almost whistling. And I'd run along to try and keep up with him with all this stuff. And eventually you got, because it was such a huge majority, rather like now, I guess, you had all these people wandering around, didn't know where to go or what to do, and you had little Lockers to put your stuff. And then it took you a while before you got some staff. It was very traumatic, I think, is the main thing. But, you know, we were on the government benches. That always attracted me. (Time 0:01:55)
Finding Hull
Johnson quickly settled into his constituency, Hull West and Hesel.
He was fascinated by its history as a major fishing port and the impact of its decline.
Transcript:
Alan Johnson
But all of us are on the left. We are democratic socialists or social democrats, whatever you want to call us. And so I quickly settled in, mainly because, and this is where I'm absolutely with you, Rory, because I read your fabulous book. I reviewed it as well and said it was fabulous at the time. So I'm not just saying it here. I loved my constituency. My constituency didn't choose me. I was imposed. When I took the parachute off and looked around in Hull West and Hesel, I found a wonderful place, not just because I've always been interested in poetry where here's the place where
Alastair Campbell
Andrew marvel was the mp forget larkin andrew stevie smith not waving but drowning born in west hull here was larkin i don't think you just said that during the campaign would you i wouldn't
Alan Johnson
Have said any of that no and when i got there larkin wasn't a great hero by the way there wasn't even a statue of him but it was the biggest fishing port distant water fishing port in the world. It had been. And that had all disappeared overnight. You could walk across St. Andrew's Quay from one trawler to the others. There were 250 of them. And now there was just one. And through that slump, by the way, the trawler men were promised all kinds of things. Promised retraining, promised money, promised redeployment. They got nothing. They were classified as casual workers. (Time 0:04:11)
Militant's Pernicious Influence
Militant, a Trotskyist group, infiltrated the Labour Party to gain power.
They prioritized radical ideologies over local issues, hindering the party's connection with voters.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
One he didn't. This is too traumatic for any of you to be funny and concise about it. But can you just tell us very briefly, what was militant for our younger listeners?
Alan Johnson
If you think of momentum more recently around Corbyn, militant was in a way much more pernicious, much more pernicious and much nastier. And really it was one of the things that have happened ever since the Labour Party was created in 1900. These kind of off to the, on a different planet, far left groups decide the only way they can manage to get any power is to wear Labour's clothes to get elected. Couldn't get elected on their own platform. So entryism was a big thing. It's always been a big thing.
Rory Stewart
And they had very radical left-wing people.
Alan Johnson
Very radical. I mean, the time of Wilson was crypto-communist, they used to call them, and they were all over the place. But this was Trotskyist, basically. I mean, they had no time for Stalin.
Rory Stewart
What did Trotskyist believe in? I mean, they call him Trotskyist. I don't even understand. What were they thinking about? They believed Stalin was a sellout, basically.
Alan Johnson
They believed that any attempt to, well, get a trotskyist and i'll explain it to you but basically they felt that the revolution was betrayed the revolution was betrayed because internationalism And you know ensuring that there was a a proletariat dictatorship proletariat right across the world that was the job and you don that.
Rory Stewart
And so I suppose that actually Tony Blair's rise to power and the move, Neil Kinnock and John Smith and Tony Blair, was painful. I mean, more painful than conservative politics. Because presumably the people on the left felt very morally superior. They felt right was on their side. They were on the side of radical equality, revolutionary change, and you lot were a bunch of sellouts. So it must have been a very much more painful than conservative politics, these fights.
Alan Johnson
Conservative politics might go that way. I doubt it will ever be as bad as in the early 80s. No, it's brutal. Yeah. Things Can Only Get Better, the great book by John O'Farrell. He explains in the, and this is very much my experience of this as I was in Slough at the time, Slough Labour Party. He describes a constituency meeting. They only had a bit of money, one leaflet to a big council estate. Should we make it about the cuts to local council and, you know, bin collectors not coming around? Or should we make it about Nicaragua? Militant were in the majority and they had to walk around this council estate delivering leaflets on Nicaragua. That's a great example of what things were like. (Time 0:06:40)
Blair's Persuasion
Tony Blair persuaded Johnson to become an MP after his successful campaign against post office privatization.
Johnson was hesitant at first but ultimately saw it as a valuable opportunity.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
Tony sort of chased you down, a bit like he chased me down a few years ago, sort of didn't give up. Just talk us through how he kind of wore you down to become a candidate. You were sort of, I can't remember how your name first came up, but you were sort of on this list of people that we thought were good MPs.
Alan Johnson
You were a big deal, right? I mean, you were running a big union. I don't know about a big deal. It was a big union and we'd had a big victory. We stopped Heseltine, a major privatiser in the post office. Everyone had lost those disputes, whether it was rail, whether it was steel. And how did you win? Tell us a bit about the tactics. There was a great documentary about it, Michael Cockerell documentary about it. We employed the Tories PR agents and we got behind Tory lines and we got the Tories really, really rabid about the effect of this. Your local post office will close. You get the end of your Saturday delivery and all of that. Forget two deliveries a day. All the things that have happened post-privatization, by the way. But this was the early 90s. And because we won it, it was seen as a big thing. Tony was very pleased. And this documentary by Michael Cockrell that Tony might well have watched. I doubt it. It was a word in the right ear. It was about lobbying. And he made our campaign the centerpiece of a one-hour program. It was at least 25 minutes.
Alastair Campbell
No, but also you were quite high profile just around the place and across the media. And you were very, very – you were clearly of our politics. And you were also clearly a very good communicator.
Alan Johnson
Because of that, really, I had a profile, only because of that. But no, I'm driving up Gypsy Hill. This thing that's like a brick next to me, which is apparently called a mobile phone, goes. I did pull over because I was late for my mother-in birthday party. Picked it up. I'd had a thing with Tony about a candidate election in Newport. Remember when Alan Howarth crossed the floor? And I wanted to talk to him because we had a good guy, Reg Kelly, who was in Newport and we wanted to be assured that it was going to be a vote of the members. Angie comes on the line. Angie puts me through to Tony. Tony says, yes, yes, no question of it. It's going to be an open ballot. And we'll win it. But he said, but Alan, just as I'm trying to get away because I've got my mother-in I hear you want to be an MP. I said, I haven't told you that. Tony, I've got the slightest wish to be an MP. And I didn't have the slightest wish to be an MP. I mean, why would I want to go to the backbenchers? Anyway, he said, well, I'd quite like you to be an MP. You know the way he ends up. I'd quite like you to be an MP. I thought, bloody hell, you know. Come and talk to me, he said. I was on the NEC Labor Party. So I went and spoke to him. I said, well, where would the seat be? He said, well, where do you want it to be? Because what we know now is all those MPs who were going to step down. We're going to put on the House of Lords. To spend more time with the Peerages. He knew. He knew who they were. That that was coming up. But, I mean, this is where I feel guilty. Because I mean, you did it through a very unique route, through the kind of Cameron's flirtation with primaries. I see so many of my colleagues who slogged away for years, moved the family to places where they thought the MP was going to breathe their last. And here was I being asked by the leader of the party. (Time 0:09:40)
An Unlikely Minister
Despite lacking a university education, Johnson became Higher Education Minister.
Blair believed this background would help him address tuition fee controversies.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
So yeah, probably. And were you involved in him becoming a minister? I don't know.
Alan Johnson
There'd be discussions. I've got this suspicion that you were behind. I'm not becoming a minister. I was a minister. I was PPS the same year I got elected to a wonderful woman called Dawn Primarola as Paymaster General. Then in 1999, junior minister DTI Puss, then minister of state. Then I get a phone call after the 2001 election and I'm going over the Humber Bridge in the back of a government jag because I'd done something at Bishop Burton College, my role as DTI minister. And the phone rings, there's a reshuffle going on. And Tony said, Alan, I'd like you to go to education. I'd like you to be the minister for higher education. There's absolutely no word of a lie. I said, Tony, minister for higher education, you realize I left school at 15. I never went to university. He said, precisely, precisely. (Time 0:14:00)
Transforming Health
Johnson had a successful two-year term as Health Secretary under Gordon Brown.
He worked with surgeon Ara Darzi, implementing reforms like improving NHS treatment access.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
Moving on, you went on from that to be the section of state for health, which is, as famously people say, kind of the biggest train set in government, this enormous over 100 billion pound Machine, million employees, et cetera. I mean, that must have been an incredible responsibility. And it must have been completely overwhelming to try to get your head around something so big, so complicated, you know, hundreds of millions of GP appointments a year. I mean, how do you get your head around something like that? Well, this is now Gordon Brown. So Alistair's departed the scene, Tony's departed the scene.
Alan Johnson
On the day he went, on the evening he went, Gordon said, well, you can stay at education if you want, but incidentally, I'm going to make it this schools and families thing. And I'm going to take higher education and further education, put it in another department, but you can do that if you want. My priority is health. And I'd quite like you to go to health. Well, of course, you go to health. I was really fortunate because the heavy lifting, we're now talking about 2007, the 10-year plan, and we're living this life again now, including Aradazi, mention him in a second, 10-year plan was well underway. We'd been recruiting nurses and doctors. The famous announcement Tony made on Sunday TV that he's going to increase the budget of the health. We were now going towards 110 billion. It's 160 now, but we're going towards 110 billion, which was incredible. Investment per head of population. So Patricia Hewitt, my predecessor, had been through hell. You might remember nurses screaming and shouting at her at conferences. That's because she was sorting out the budgets of the local primary care groups, which is a long story. Alan Milburn had done these big reforms. Alan Milburn had done his bit. Everyone had done their bit. I should warn you, Alan, that Alan Milburn is Rory's hero. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's a hero of mine as well. He's a good friend. And he's back doing the same thing again, I see. It's certainly in the picture. Gordon knew what he wanted to do on health. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, one of which was to say, look, there's this guy, Aradazi, who's a surgeon. And Gordon had been to a presentation that Ara made about the number of visits people have to make, the bus journeys to here, to there, to there, shifting healthcare to the communities, All of that. He said, I'd like to bring Ara Darzi in. Remember, they were called GOATS, government of all the talent. That's right. I'd like to bring Ara in as a minister and be able to work with you as a minister of state. Now, the first thing that springs to mind when you think of a major leading surgeon isn't humility, is it? I mean, let's face it. Would this guy be satisfied to be a minister of state? Because it was Ara, who is a wonderful person, by the way. I mean, you wouldn't know. He used to, you know, at St. Mary's where he's a surgeon, he used to go in sometimes dressed as a porter. Because when he stepped in the lift as a surgeon, everyone drew back and bowed to him and paid homage. He went as a porter to see what the kind of reaction was to him as a porter. I mean, he's that kind of guy. There's no ears and graces about her. And we forged a very good relationship. And that was Gordon's idea. I had two great years. First of all, because it was two years and I was usually moved on, you know, after a year, but it was two years. We dealt with some really big issues. I loved everything about it. The NHS used to withdraw treatment from someone who couldn't get a drug. Nice, which was probably Alan Milburn's greatest contribution, by the way, NICE hadn't approved the drug. Just to explain to us, NICE and they (Time 0:15:58)
Immigration and Brexit
The UK's open-door policy for the Eastern Bloc in 2004 created a perception of uncontrolled immigration.
This fueled the Brexit vote, highlighting the need for controlled immigration policies.
Transcript:
Alastair Campbell
You did trade, you did pensions, work and pensions, you did education, you did health, and you were also Home Secretary. I always thought you were in favour of identity cards. I was, of course. I introduced them. Right, but... Still got mine if you want to see it. But where are you now on the politics of immigration? Did we handle it well? Did we underestimate the impact? What should a new Labour government now be doing to tackle immigration as a political issue?
Alan Johnson
Well, we didn't handle it in the way we're accused of handling it, i.e. An open door. That all comes from 2004 when the Eastern Bloc came in. And we said, us, Sweden and Ireland, who were the three most successful economies in Europe, we had 600,000 vacancies. I was at work and pensions at the time. There's no qualifying period. People can come here straight away. And then you had the Polish plumber and all of that. And probably in hindsight, that was a mistake, only because of the optics of it. I mean, you know, as well as I know, people say Tony wasn't concerned in, you know, open door emigrant. God, he was fanatical about ensuring that we had that. That's why David Blunkett went and did that deal in France. With Sarkozy, yeah. With Sarkozy. So what happened, my view on this is that we, in the end, when that referendum came, the majority of British people, I think, if you say to them, immigration has been good for this country, They will agree, but it needs to be controlled. They will agree. And others were able to say with some justification, but it's not controlled from 26 countries in Europe. It's not controlled. Not just that, they were meant to tell us we were never part of Schengen. We were meant to know if serious criminals were trying to come into this country from countries in the European Union. We never got the information. So we didn't know. And all of that is happening in Germany now, you know, kind of looking to go back on Schengen. Well, if they'd been in that ballgame in 2015, 2016, the European Union, because people want in this country and I think in most other countries, they want immigrants to feel safe here. They are liberal about immigration as long as it's controlled. And when it looks like it's not controlled, you're going to get people saying, well, close the border. One (Time 0:24:22)
Qualities of a Good Politician
Decisiveness is crucial for effective leadership in politics.
Special advisors can play a key role in linking the civil service with the ministerial team.
Transcript:
Rory Stewart
We're coming sort of towards the end. And I think almost to my last question, can you reflect a little bit on what you learned about what makes a good politician and what makes a bad politician? And I'd love to see a couple of things. One of them, your strength and weaknesses of politician, and then maybe what you've seen in other people and strength and weaknesses as politicians.
Alan Johnson
It's like being on the psychiatrist's couch with you two. I think decisiveness is crucial. Decisiveness is crucial. I like to think I was decisive. I know of junior ministers and even ministers whose problem was that they couldn't make a decision. They waited ages and ages and ages before they make a decision. Now, I know sometimes that can be the wrong decision, but what the civil service want, you know this, is a decisive minister. And they'll put all the arguments, but once you're in a car, it's dual control. You've got a civil service next to you. If you're not going to put the car in gear and drive it away, they will. I think that's crucial. I think, you know, special advisors is a crucial issue here. I had brilliant special advisors. They came with me to every department and they didn't have any expertise, obviously. They didn't need expertise in that department. They had expertise at work and pensions when I originally recruited them. But they were good at linking the civil service with the ministerial team. You hear so many stories about special advisors who kind of walk around as Jack the Lads because they've got the minister's ear and treat civil servants with disdain. Mine never did do that, which I think was part of our success. Any success in the sense of staying and not getting sacked. And your weaknesses as a minister? What do you think looking back you were less good at in the game? Or as a politician, what were you less good at in the game? I should have been more tuned in to politics as a whole. It was always to me, it was fun. I was enjoying it, but I was also reading books i was enjoying listening to music i think really it's so all-consuming that the times when i thought when that's gone wrong was because I didn't pay enough attention to it and i should have been all over it and i admire the ministers who really are thinking about it day and night but i'm afraid that's just not that's (Time 0:28:24)
