Alan Johnson tries killer hug on David Cameron

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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It is rare that a Labour cabinet minister pays a compliment to David Cameron. So when Alan Johnson, the health secretary and working-class hero, says nice things about the Old Etonian Conservative leader, you sit up and take notice.

“Cameron’s likeable,” Johnson said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “He’s articulate. He’s a nice guy.”

Does Cameron really believe in the National Health Service? “I am sure he is genuine about the NHS,” said Johnson.

What is going on? Johnson was articulating Labour’s latest attempt to find a line of attack against the Tories that might resonate with voters.

No 10 spin doctors privately admit that attempts to paint Cameron as a bicycling chameleon, uncaring toff or insincere estate agent have failed. Polls and focus groups regularly find that voters view Cameron as “affable” and “well meaning”.

Now the strategy is shifting. The message is that Cameron may be a pleasant chap but he is a prisoner of an unreconstructed rightwing party that would destroy essential public services if it ever won power.

“Cameron’s been very skilful at the way he has projected his own image onto his party. Now there is a feeling that, yes, you are a nice guy, but what is next?” Johnson said.

“Cameron’s genuine, but he is leading the Conservative party. It is not a presidential system – much as we might have disguised it under Tony. This is a party system.”

Those in the cabinet with Oxford degrees in political philosophy talk about the “head-body paradox”.

The theory is that a split party, with a leader leaning towards the left while the grass roots are pulling rightwards, can never win an election.

Johnson, a former postman who left school at 15 with no O-levels, has little time for high-brow language but he said: “The Conservative party fought the 2001 election on tax breaks if you go private . . . the 2005 election on the patient passport. It is still the old Conservative party there.”

The 58-year-old MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle came second to Harriet Harman in the 2007 Labour deputy leader contest and was once seen as a potential challenger to Gordon Brown For the past 18 months, however, Johnson has kept a low profile as he has got to grips with the NHS.

He has won plaudits for his handling of the row over “co-payments” for cancer drugs. “We got rid of a cruel system,” he said, referring to the cancer sufferers who were denied NHS treatment if they bought drugs available only in the private sector. “They should continue to get NHS treatment, but the private treatment they get should be in a private setting. That seems reasonable.”

Much of Johnson’s energy is now devoted to finding solutions to the obesity crisis. He practises what he preaches, refusing to take his ministerial car on short journeys around Westminster.

“I never take the car,” he said. “The division bell [for a Commons vote] goes and you have seven minutes. You can walk it.”

Now Johnson seems keen to play a more active role in Labour politics. Could he have his eyes on the leadership if Brown goes after the next election? More likely he sees himself asa “real Labour” counterweight to the Blairite slickers such as Lord Mandelson and James Purnell who dominate the government agenda.

In the interview he launched an outspoken attack on the “greed” of the boss class, going further than any other minister in his criticism of the “exorbitant” bonus culture.

“People do question what looks like greed, such as remuneration committees of major companies deciding among themselves that they will give themselves big salary increases,” he said.

“That kind of world where you make up a figure and invent a fact that it is necessary to the future of the company to pay someone an exorbitant amount has to be questioned.”

Controversially, Johnson defended the wildcat strikers protesting at the lack of “British jobs for British workers”.

“There was a lot of bollocks talked,” he said. “You have the odd xenophobic racist in every gathering. I probably met more of them on the doors I knocked on when I was a postman than the guys back at the sorting office.”

Whether Labour wins or loses the next election, Johnson is determined to be a player in the party’s future. Could this postman ring twice? We’ll see.

The mud doens't stick

Labour has struggled to find ways of depicting David Cameron in a negative light.

In 2006 it portrayed him as a cartoon chameleon “available in any colour”, but many voters thought the image sweet, and Cameron himself said he’d stuck a picture of it on his fridge.

Then Labour compared him with an estate agent – “nowhere to be seen when the roof falls in”. That also flopped.

During the Crewe and Nantwich by-election last year, Labour activists wearing top hats and tails tried to portray him as an out-of-touch “toff”.

They were accused of resorting to class warfare and the Tories romped home.

[dvbuk55]

He's probably hedging his bets - look how his attitude has changed since he left the union - I would imagine he's looking for a nice safe Tory seat.

[k979aaa]

He's probably hedging his bets - look how his attitude has changed since he left the union - I would imagine he's looking for a nice safe Tory seat.

in the house of lord's and then write a book from postman to lord john'O fu*k him and new labour.