This boy.  

 

Although I generally find political biographies quite tedious and self-obsessed, occasionally I enjoy reading them. I recently spoke to a colleague who had just read This Boy by former Home secretary, Alan Johnson. I have always had a bit of soft spot for Mr Johnson, based almost entirely on the fact that he was General Secretary of the communication workers union, of which I used to be a member when I followed my father and grandfather in to working for the Royal Mail when I left school. The colleague who had read the book had done so on kindle but recommended it so I thought I might purchase it for my holiday book (I always take one on holiday each year). Unable to find it in Asda’s best sellers, I decided to venture online and look on Amazon. I soon found a used copy priced quite reasonably at £2.50 in good condition, only read once.

I’m not suggesting the vendor lied, he may well have only read the book once, but it looked as though it had been well handled more than once. The dog eared pages looked like they had been used as a splatter guard and the corners of the cover were torn. In fact were it not for the British heart foundation 99p sticker on the spine, I suspect the yellowed pages may have fallen out.

 

 

Despite its weathered appearance I decided to keep it and read the first couple of chapters before my holiday just to whet my appetite.

Mr Johnson was born in London in 1950. 1950 was just 21 years before I was born in the wintery January of 1971. As I already said, my Dad worked as a humble postman. We lived in a modest 3 bedroom council house, which my parents still live in (although they took advantage of Thatcher’s right to buy in the 80’s). When I was born the house needed lots of work doing to it. The kitchen still boasted an old fashioned pantry and the three gardens that living on a corner plot gave us, needed hours and hours of attention from my Mum to get them to the state of splendor they offer today. Old steel window frames and single glazing offered little warmth in the days before central heating but we had an inside toilet.

What struck me immediately about Alan Johnson’s book was the huge difference between the working class poorness I grew up in and the absolute horrendous poverty that he described experiencing just 20 years prior. With a father that offered little or nothing in the way of house-keeping or paternal instinct, Johnson early years in the slums sounded like they were a hundred years before I was born. I was amazed to think of how far we had progressed in just two short decades. He talks of having no gas or electric in the house until they were moved and then the way they had to put money in the slot to obtain services we all take for granted today, as we did in 1971. Then there was the emergence of TV, which in 1950 was almost unheard of in a council house. By ’71 almost everyone had a set, even though we only had 3 channels to choose from. He talks of playing in the street safely as there were hardly any cars on the road. Although I owned a car before my father finally got rid of his Honda 90 motor cycle, cars certainly were not unusual by the time I was born. Such massive changes are hard to comprehend now days.

20 years ago John Major was prime minister, Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack and Fred and Rose West were charged with murder. The channel tunnel was officially opened in 1994 and Wet Wet Wet’s Love is all around us was number 1 in the charts for what seemed an eternity.

A bomb exploded outside the Israeli embassy injuring 15 people and Harry Styles of One Direction was born, as was my first son. All of these things feel like they happened quite recently to me and yet the 20 year gap is the same vast chasm between my birth and that of Alan Johnson.

Fiercely proud of my working class roots, I never considered myself to be fortunate or privileged until I read This Boy.

I wonder how far we will all come in the next 20 years by which time my son will be forty (3 years younger than I am now). Will we still be in austerity enforced upon us by ideological Tory governments or will there be a new party in power?

 It was announced today that Boris Johnson intends to stand once more in next year’s general election. The news came as no surprise really, as many believe he will be the next leader of the conservative party. Whether that will be as Prime minister or leader of the opposition will depend largely on the popularity in the next 12 months of Ed Miliband.

Despite the Tories being consistently behind Labour in the polls for some time, leader Ed is equally as consistent at polling lower than Cameron. This is often credited to Miliband’s geekiness and lack of photogenic qualities. The media would have us believe it is because he is unable to eat bacon sandwich without looking ugly. Others say it due to his links to the trade unions which elected him while others blame it on his brother David, who many still believe would have and should have been a better leader.

Others would say that it is because like the Tories, Miliband is out of touch with the reality facing ordinary people, being paid low wages and living in over-priced properties. Consecutive Labour governments did little to ease the housing crisis, continuing to sell off stock while failing to address the growing waiting lists for social housing. They did even less to repeal the ant- trade union laws that the Tories would strengthen if re-elected in 2015. Prime minister David Cameron insists on referring to trade union pay masters every week in Prime ministers questions in spite of the fact that few of the current crop of Labour MPs have had real jobs any more than the other side of parliament.

Men and women from council estates and trade unions are almost extinct in parliament these days and reading Alan Johnsons This Boy, makes it crystal clear what the current batch miss out on. Alan Johnson understands what it is like to have to have two or three jobs to pay the bills. He understands the needs of council tenants and he knows the issues they face. He understands the community spirit and the pride of working class families.

I have written before of the need for more working class MPs and the need for more trade unionized MPs. Former Labour MP Denis Macshane called for working class shortlists but the amount of MPs who didn’t attend Oxbridge Universities continues to recede. The trade union paymasters of the labour party needs to demand more candidates from a normal background and the system which prohibits all but the wealthy from becoming a politician is in need of a major overhaul. Maybe then, possibly in 20 years’ time I might be able to give a voice back to normal people, stand against Boris and be an MP myself.