Left Foot Forward readers overwhelmingly want the former shadow chancellor brought back into the fold.
Left Foot Forward readers overwhelmingly want the former shadow chancellor brought back into the fold
Message to Ed Miliband: bring Alan Johnson back into the Cabinet. Or at least that’s the message Left Foot Forward readers have given in our latest poll.
Almost three quarters (68 per cent) of those who voted said that the former shadow chancellor should be brought back to the Labour front bench, with just 26 per cent rejecting the idea.
Six per cent of respondents said it didn’t matter whether or not Miliband brought back Johnson.
The suggestion was first mooted by former home secretary David Blunkett, who suggested last week that Miliband should bring some “oldies” back into his top team, specifically Alan Johnson. Johnson quit as shadow chancellor in 2010 and has been on the backbenches ever since.
However it looks like many on the left still see a role for him in the shadow cabinet and, hopefully, a future Labour government.
One of the things that undoubtedly fuels public apathy toward politics is the sense that the political class are all from the same social background. This at least partly explains the success as a communicator of UKIP leader Nigel Farage. To use the tired cliche, he sounds like ‘someone you might meet down the pub’.
Similarly with Alan Johnson. Johnson grew up in a poor household and is a former postman. In the real world this isn’t particularly exceptional, but in the Westminster bubble he might as well be an alien life form. And as we’ve seen with Nigel Farage, hardly a man of the people but someone who at least speaks human, ordinariness can be turned to your advantage in a world inhabited largely by Oxbridge types.
And I suspect that’s why LFF readers overwhelmingly view Alan Johnson as a potential asset to Ed Miliband. He’s intelligent, likeable and, most importantly, he resembles an actual human being. Politics could do with a lot more people like that.
25 Responses to “Bring back Alan Johnson, say Left Foot Forward readers”
Norfolk29
You possibly do not remember the Labour Party before 1983 when Foot in Mouth was the common response to any situation. Mandelson was put in charge of the Labour Response Unit in the late 1980’s and we even had a chance in 1992. Then Campbell came on the scene and we were flavour of the month. Cameron appointed Coulson to try to get the Tories on the same footing as Campbell gave Labour.
AlanGiles
I can remember much further back than that. Joe Haines, for example, did’nt have undisclosed loans, or make false declarations on mortgage applications, or (as Campbell did) move from being a scribbler on a sex magazine to aiding and abetting the prosecution of a war by causing to be published a dossier making erroneous or even false allegations.
Both these men are a disgrace. It is appropriate one ended up treading the boards (till he took up his political career again, this time with a dictator) and the other hobnobbing with the Rothchilds. Let them stay as loathesome footnotes to history
Norfolk29
Oh dear, you really have a memory for all the worse side of human nature and assume it is all on the Labour side. When the history of this period is written, and it will be because it is one of the worst times of growing inequality, with the rich becoming richer, and the middle class totally siding with the rich, the small failings of the Left will be seen in prospective as tiny in comparison to the inequities of the rich. Reeves and Hunt and Eagles and Alexander are good people who will run a Labour Administration in the best interests of the majority of the population, and that includes the 60% middle class who consider themselves above ever voting Labour. However, it is important that Alan Johnson’s voice of calm and moderation be heard amongst the clamor for unobtainable perfection. Mandelson got carried away with the need for a house in Notting Hill and got a loan from a friend. In the old days of Joe Haines no one would have known this and would have stayed quiet if they did. No today when there is no privacy. May all our sins be forgiven. Amen.
AlanGiles
You seem very indulgent about Mandy;s snobbery and dishonesty. (“small failings”) The man is an embarrassment.
As for Johnson, he was as right wing and doctrinaire as Blunkett and Reid.
If you want Conservative Labour, good luck to you. The return of Johnson would do nothing to improve this weak, shambling opposition, which seems terrified of upsetting the tabloids.
Oh – Reeves has said she will be “tougher than the Tories” on welfare, which make the rest of your observations otiose.
littleoddsandpieces
The Tories paint all those starving in the same vein as drug addict / alcoholic tiny minority, as the parents fault kids starve to point of Rickets. Labour says nothing and could have brought the government down, as it is the working poor and poor pensioners who are the bulk of those going to food banks.
Now the working poor and poor pensioners can be one at the same person, as you can get state pension payout and remain in work.
Women losing state pension payout at 60 from the full NI Fund not having needed a top from tax for decades, from a completely full NI Fund, that cannot be emptied by government and must be kept 8 weeks cash in hand surplus, could also have been a Labour policy that would have pulled away from all other parties and not just a few points ahead in the polls as now.
Women MPs kept pension payout at 60 from 2012, lost to women turning 60 from 2013.
Many women will end up absolutely nothing in old age for life – no state pension, no benefit, least chance of a job over 60, no disability / chronic sick benefits. Some agencies are not giving out vouchers to food banks to those losing benefit.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
If Jonh Cruddas became Prime Minister and Labour’s policies gave us:
– Revoke Welfare Reform Act
– Just pay benefit til universal non-means tested citizen wage can replace all welfare admin / benefit 2016-2017 tax year if Labour win, as they would win big if they did these policies instead
– The citizen wage also helps the squeezed middle, especially the biggest losers in tax, pension and benefit changes – women, who had a 5 per cen drop in threshold before get hit by next higher tax band. Replaces women’s losses in child tax credits and maternity benefits.
– State pension at 60 from 2013 for women (lost since then)
– State pension equalised at 60 for men from 2015
– Revoke Pension Bill
– Revoke Flat Rate Pension due 2016
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
– Link state pension to average wages again
– Pass law guaranteeing pension payout, that Labour had in 1975, revoked by Tories in 1993 and not brought back in 13 years of Labour rule til 2010.
– One off back-dated tax free lump sum for women who lost state pension payout from 2013 (30,000 born 1953) and 2014 (500,000 born 1954) and those born 1954 and 1955 a small sum for the months in 2015 til Labour win big in May, then all paid monthly state pension, which you get in work or retire.
Miliband and Balls only offer Labour at best a minority government in 2015, which means the Tories continue to rule. At worst, Labour could lose.
How about Dave Nellist from TUSC for Prime Minister or Chancellor of Labour?
See the banned TUSC video on my personal website:
http://www.theswansnewparty.org.uk