The Observer
04.08.19 7Alan Johnson was delighted recently
to be described as an “author and
former politician”. He laughs : “You
can put that on my gravestone,
that’s fi ne.” A Labour MP for 20 years
(he stood down in 2017) and cabinet
minister (notably as home secretary,
and secretary of state for education
and for health ), Johnson’s fi rst
book, This Boy , came out in 2013. It
won both the Ondaatje and Orwell
prizes. That, and three subsequent
memoirs, have sold more than half
a million copies. His latest, In My
Life, which charts his early years
through the music that obsessed
him, has just been published in
paperback and in the autumn he
will take his one-man theatre show
on a UK tour.Th e books have been hugely
successful, but they are not what
we’ve come to expect from political
memoirs, are they?
I didn’t want to write a traditional
political memoir, where you refi ght
the battles you had 20 years ago
on esoteric issues that everyone’s
forgotten about. Self-justifi cation.
One critic said that I only spent 40
pages on my 11-year ministerial
career, but that was deliberate.
Generally I’m not keen on either
bitterness – which doesn’t come
off the page very well – or some
kind of exposé, which has been
done hundreds of times before
by people that shared those years
in government with me. I never
read them, so I didn’t want to
write one.Th ere are some lovely stories in In My
Life about your own short-lived musicAlan Johnson
Author, 69career: the bands you were in, sending
tracks to Elvis Costello. How close
were you to making it?
Oh, pretentious little git I was,
I thought I was the face of ’ 67. I
thought I had songwriting ability,
I was a passable guitarist, I had
good looks, slim and elegant and
all that, and I thought it was going
to happen. I had that audition for
Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, who
were a very big band, and I got right
to the fi nal two. And I made the
record [with his band the Area]. Both
of those things happened when
I was 16.Would time be kind to the material?
Erm, the record, which you can
actually get on YouTube, was
written by two other guys in the
band; I wrote the B-side. It was
rubbish, really. I thought I could
make it as a songwriter if I could get
people to listen to my songs but, as
I write in the book, I sent that tapeoff to Elvis Costello in 1982 and I’m
still waiting for a reply.You left school at 15, were married at
18, had three kids by the age of 20.
You were working 70 hours a week as
a postman. Did you just have to get on
with earning a living?
Oh, I had an amazingly charmed
life. When I was 19, I ended up on
a lovely council estate in Slough- front garden, back garden, indoor
toilet – a job for life at the post offi ce
provided you get up at 4am. And a
strong union to defend my interests.
I consider myself blessed. Only a
tiny percentage went to university:
2% when I was born, 6% when I left
school. Like millions of working-
class kids, you might as well have
thought about going to Pluto for
three years.
Do you miss politics now or was it the
right time to go?
Well, curiously, I’ve got a bit of astreak in me that is attracted to the
really diffi cult issues. Being part
of trying to solve that. But I did it
for 20 years so, in that sense, my
race was well and truly run. And
indeed now in today’s Labour party
there’s no one that attracts more
visceral hatred than ministers who
served under Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown. They hate us more than they
hate the Tories. “Blairite” is a term
of abuse more than any swear word.
And he was the most successful
leader we’ve ever had, who won
three elections, but there you go.What did you think of Alastair
Campbell’s comments last week
that the Labour party is in danger
of being destroyed as a “ serious
political force”?
Yeah, we’re heading for disaster and
everybody knows that. The simple
problem we’ve got is that Jeremy
Corbyn is not a leader. He’s never
going to be a leader, never wanted to
be a leader, is totally uncomfortable
in the role as leader. And on Europe
he’s a total disaster. So I think
Alastair Campbell’s right.Who would do a better job as Labour
leader?
Practically anyone, actually.
Because Jeremy is not just pious
and sanctimonious, he’s useless at
leading, which is why he has people
around him to do his shoelaces up,
pull his strings. And we’ve got such
good women in particular on our
benches, whether it’s Rachel Reeves,
Yvette Cooper, Lisa Nandy or Stella
Creasy. There’s a whole list of them
that would do a much better job.What’s your take on the fi rst few days
of Boris Johnson as prime minister?
I think he’s got himself into a
position almost by accident where
he’s going to have to fi nd the
compromise that he says he’s so
dreading. But if he genuinely does
intend to crash out – if it’s not a one-
in-a-million chance of crashing out
without a deal – then he’s fi nished.
And he’ll go down as the worst prime
minister since Theresa May, and
she’s the worst prime minister since
David Cameron and he’s the worst
prime minister since Lord North. So
he’ll carry on that progression.Does music still excite you now?
The kids hate it, of course, when
anyone of a bygone generation likes
their music, but I’m afraid I do like
St Vincent, Everything Everything,
John Grant.And what are you reading?
That book everyone’s talking about,
Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy
Brodesser-Akner ; it’s very good.
I’m also reading a biography of
Stalin at the same time – just so I
understand the Labour party better!
Interview by Tim LewisAlan Johnson’s In My Life tour runs
from 18 September to 30 November‘I sent a
tape off
to Elvis
Costello in
1982 and
I’m still
waiting
for a reply’The Labour grandee
turned memoirist onhis musical youth,
the Corbyn problem,and avoiding the
pitfalls of politicalautobiographies
Alan Johnson:
‘I’ve got a streak
in me that
is attracted
to the really
diffi cult issues.’
Photograph by
Richard Saker
for the Observer
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