One of the dangerous issues that comes with being a middle-aged interviewer, versus a youthful one, is the tendency to complain loudly that individuals in public life was once a lot much less managed, a lot extra wild and free and apt to say the unsuitable (the attention-grabbing) factor.
Nobody likes a nostalgist, in spite of everything. However within the case of politicians, I’m afraid there’s no getting away from it. In 2024, unbridled they aren’t. Each phrase is rehearsed. Even their sandwich fillings have been focus-grouped.
After I heard the unhappy information that John Prescott had died, I used to be full of nostalgia, and never just for my youth. Within the pantheon of my former interviewees, he started someplace across the center: not as juicy as Gore Vidal, however extra fascinating (actually!) than Tom Jones. Because the years glided by, nonetheless, one thing occurred. He started to rise ever upwards, to a degree the place I now consider him as within the prime 10. If Peter Mandelson divulged his character to me within the light nibbling of a Pret a Manger tiffin bar – with what ruthless delicacy he munched! – I situated Prescott’s candy, unhappy soul within the easy phrases: “Blimmin’ Marks & Spencer’s trifles.”
The yr was 2008, and the previous deputy prime minister had simply printed his memoirs, a e-book whose central revelation was that he’d suffered from bulimia, which introduced him to binge on grocery store trifles (he and his spouse, Pauline, favored the most effective issues in life, and they also have been M&S). We talked about this so much – the topic fascinated him – and what he mentioned was sudden in addition to comical.
As soon as we’d received previous his fury on the ignorance of journalists – “they mentioned I’d failed as a result of I used to be nonetheless fats!” – we arrived on the type of male vainness that all the time touches me, idiot that I’m. It was, he mentioned, nice to now not be bulimic: his face had stopped blowing up “like Les Dawson’s”. Who had aged higher? I requested. Him or Tony Blair? “Oh, I believe I’ve,” he replied, fast as a flash.
Later, he pulled a plastic comb from his pocket, and attended to his hair. This, I understood, was his method of consoling himself for myriad snubs and slights, amongst them the truth that Blair had invited him to Chequers solely twice.
A few of this may occasionally not sound to your ears particularly uninhibited, for all that it’s revealing – although you’ve most likely by no means tried to get Yvette Cooper to speak like a human being. However in reality, the second of zero restraint had occurred proper initially of our assembly.
In Prescott’s gloomy Home of Commons workplace have been two armchairs organized round a desk, on which there was a mannequin of a hand grenade with an indication that learn: “Complaints division. Pull for consideration.” (He cherished such knick-knacks: he additionally had a tiny china mannequin of a Peking duck, a tribute to his favorite meals at Mr Chu’s restaurant in Hull). I took one chair, and he took the opposite, at which level the enjoyable started.
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Woah! I hardly knew the place to look as he put one hand round his proper ankle and lifted it, arranging it in order that it dangled over the chair’s arm. Naturally, I wished him to be comfy – disclosure requires a certain quantity of rest – however this was an excessive amount of. His… pelvis was pointing at me, his hand hovering above it like a cowboy’s over his holster. And on this place he remained. Inwardly, I used to be delighted. Right here was copy. Outwardly, I stored my cool with questions on social class and the areas.
Now, even because it makes me chuckle, I consider that pose as a marker. As soon as, there actually have been politicians who didn’t a lot care what journalists considered them – a bracing, useful high quality that eludes even Prescott’s pure inheritor, Angela Rayner.
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