Another bright-spark Blairite who has been recently elevated to high places — as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions — is Alan Johnson.
Johnson was also a “Trot” when he was a teenager. But he also soon left that behind.
What experience will Alan bring to his new job? As General Secretary of the UCW, then CWU, he was the architect of the terrible policy of “commercial freedom” for a publicly owned Post Office within a liberalised market. That meant tens of thousands of job cuts and a reduction in service to the customers.
He was a fervent opponent of repealing the anti-union laws, arguing that such a policy was “intellectual claptrap” and urging good honest postmen and women not to allow themselves to be “cannon fodder for the class war”.
He was the only trade union leader to enthusiastically argue for the abolition of the old Clause Four, saying it had been written by middle class intellectuals anyway. Like the other Alan, he is a real believer in the “Project” and very articulate.
