Alan Johnson

[Lounge Lizard]

Alan Johnson's second set of memoirs are BBC Radio 4's current 'Book of the week', 9.45am each weekday.
They cover his time as a postman and CWU official in the late 1960s and 1970s and are well worth catching up with on BBC IPlayer.

[AnotherLimey]

Alan Johnson's second set of memoirs are BBC Radio 4's current 'Book of the week', 9.45am each weekday.
They cover his time as a postman and CWU official in the late 1960s and 1970s and are well worth catching up with on BBC IPlayer.

He's a complete hypocrite now

[postslippete]

He certainly is a 1st class hypocrite!!


In 1993 when he was head of the powerful Union of Communication Workers, he was on the warpath over leaked internal documents that 200 town centre post offices faced the axe.

However, fast forward to 2008 when the cabinet in which he served approved proposals to shut no fewer than 2,500 post office branches in Britain (mainly in the countryside). Oh they justified it: they were not profitable etc etc etc but they served communities.


A lot of his colleagues in the cabinet voted for the cuts, yet went back to their constituencies and campaigned against local closures. The hypocrisy of it all.



You see, thats when you know when someone is in for himself!! They are supposedly there to represent the people, but are actually forced to go along with what their leader says regardless. He was well rewarded with the role of Home Secretary too!




Budding general secretaries of the CWU (or those higher up in the union) take note.....

[Bernardson]

He would make a fine Labour Party leader but probably carries too much personal baggage.

[Edward Hunter]

The first book was pretty good. I will deffo give the second one a bash.

[Decky Boy]

Thanks for posting Lounge Lizard... I caught part of an interview with Alan on the radio last week... will check out I-player.

[Patrick301]

He would make a fine Labour Party leader but probably carries too much personal baggage.

what personal baggage ,,,,,,why should a divorce hold him back ,,,,,,,,,,,she had the affair ,,,,,,,,, not him

[Krafty]

Can't stand him.
Actually, I can't stand the Labour Party these days.

[Lounge Lizard]

Can't stand him.
Actually, I can't stand the Labour Party these days.

Boris Johnson more your type then ?

[deltaforce]

He is a bit of a rarity . One of the the very few people to rise to the rank of government minister without attending Oxbridge and the likes of. He is mainly self educated and I think he was the best Union leader we ever had.

[janitor]

Unfortunately we are politically limited I the UK at the moment, we have the blue Tories, the red tories,ukip which is probably the old tories, and the yellow streak of piss party, which abandon their morals fora little bit of power. Cameron is a failure,he stood against what must have been the worst labour PM for decades, and still couldn't get a majority.

[ballee]

He is a bit of a rarity . One of the the very few people to rise to the rank of government minister without attending Oxbridge and the likes of. He is mainly self educated and I think he was the best Union leader we ever had.

Delta force you are correct, Alan was the best we had. His biggest problem is his modesty he does not realise how good he is. If he was still there the C.W.U. would be a different kettle of fish. This man should be leading the labour party and looking to be the next PM. Perhaps he is not ambitious enough, that would be his only fault.
a

[Lounge Lizard]

He is a bit of a rarity . One of the the very few people to rise to the rank of government minister without attending Oxbridge and the likes of. He is mainly self educated and I think he was the best Union leader we ever had.

Delta force you are correct, Alan was the best we had. His biggest problem is his modesty he does not realise how good he is. If he was still there the C.W.U. would be a different kettle of fish. This man should be leading the labour party and looking to be the next PM. Perhaps he is not ambitious enough, that would be his only fault.
a

Yes, and if Alan Johnson was leading the labour party his conference speech wouldn't have been the fiasco that Milliband's was this week.

[k979aaa]

At the end of the day none were a Bob Crow no one could get better terms for his membership god rest his soul he done more good for his membership and the working man than any union and labour leader since the 1900's a testament too the man which is sadly lacking in our curant leadership we now have.

[tonymackem]

I agree with Bernardson about the personel baggage, MI5 must have shown him hes folder,because in my eyes the most capable of all the Labour people only recently on QT he said he supported Unite going on strike when challenged by some Torie waller ,where the rest of the Labour front bench would be stuttering over their replies ,but for whatever reason did not fancy the leadership