EXCLUSIVE: John Hutton tells PM - I said Gordon Brown would be a disaster
Over the festive season on PM, you'll be able to hear a series of interviews with a select group of people. MPs who will stand down at the General Election.
In the first of these tonight, John Hutton. He's been Labour MP for Barrow and Furness since 1992. He's worked in the department of health, and was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions under Tony Blair, with whom he was politically close.
Under Gordon Brown, John Hutton became defence secretary but in June he caused some surprise when he announced he was to resign.
He's been speaking to PM about how parliament has changed, the downfall of Tony Blair, and what he intends to do next. But I asked him first whether, for him, stepping down as an MP was a natural progression having stepped down as defence secretary.
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You can read some of the context to all of this in Nick Robinson's Newslog.
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hi there,
just wanted to let you know that the link to Nick Robinson's Newsblog seems to be broken and pointing to the BBC 404 page.
And may I just say that that is a fantastic 404 page! Loved the puppet and blackboard (even though that picture always freaked me out as a kid)!
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it will!
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"persistent"?
Eddie?
hmm....
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sorry, didn't mean to point out tech issues - there isn't a way to do this sotto voce...
but I will use that as an example at work of a great 404 page!
:¬)
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So, did Hutton say IT? Diddee, diddee? Huh, Huh?
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"persistent" - yes, but it was a bit more like "look, c'mon, lets talk like grown ups..."
But its the following comment about a 'dark period' where those involved including Brown should "hang their heads in shame" that was more newsworthy.
The bit about "hardworking" just feels like "I don't come to praise Caesar (with faint praise) but..."
very good interview - thanks.
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Good stuff ...
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John Hutton has changed his mind now: perhaps he thinks Gordon has been an utter disaster as Prime Minister?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Thanks Eddie for a grown up and gently persuasive interview.
This is why I listen to PM - proper interviews.
Cheers
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Superb interview - can't think of anything better to warm a cold winter's eve than a former minister fessing up to calling Gordon Brown a 'bleeping disaster!' Thank you Eddie, you've put me in the Christmas mood!
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Your interview, the subject matter, the responses, epitomises why I will take my democratic right to withhold my vote for the foreseeable future. I find the vast majority of them shallow, self serving and seeking where, being elected to democratically represent your so called community (where a lot of them don't live among) is no more than a means to an end in carving out a career when sponging off the state becomes no longer viable as an MP. No doubt such people will end up on the boards of the people who used to lobby them (and got listened too) when they had the office. And they call it democracy. Apart from that interruption not a bad program I guess.
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Well done Eddie: marvellous technique, as usual. I think the result you achieved here is dynamite ... isn't it? If not, then most people - media and public alike - must be simply yawning and subscribing to John Hutton's view. If nobody is horrified to learn that a chap like Hutton thought Brown would be a disastrous PM, then Brown must be largely recognised as, er, a disastrous PM.
Personally, I wonder if there has indeed ever been such a disastrous PM? I'd love a respected historian to offer an objective analysis of good PMs and bad - and tell us if Brown takes the biscuit.
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A bit like pulling teeth to get Hutton to confess but he must surely know he was only saying many think? In the dying days of this gov't we can clearly see what a disaster they have been. I don't know that Brown is the worst p.m. ever. Every labour p.m. since Wilson has severely damaged or wrecked our economy.
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The coterie around Brown show exactly what he's like. This is the crew who should 'hang their heads in shame'and there is a certain justice in the situation now where they are almost al perceived to be disastrous.
So much for sons of the manse.
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John Hutton should consider becoming a prophet; he has a good record!
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hmm..... been thinking about funnyjoedunn's comment.
Now, I won't harrumph words into his mouth but I think that he's annoyed that we are mired in a system that itself is so acreted with patterns of behaviour and systems that 'common sense' and fairness are not possible. 'Real' change within the construct of this system of governance is not possible (so there's no point interacting with this system of governance).
So revolution is required to change this system, so that good people who want to serve the community/do good/help are not frustrated by a complexity of concerns or worse turned venal.
So..... are there examples of systems of governance (real or fictional) that we should aspire to?
In this seasonal period is it a christian socialism?
funnyjoedunn?
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Hmm. The gentle insistence with which the instruments of torture are applied. Who is next on the list, Toeknee Blayer? Don't forget to apply ritual humiliation in equal doses to each of the main parties. It is only fair that we see them for what they are, and it is only fair that you investigate equal amounts of corruption in each party.
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Eddie I love you! Another gem of an interview!
That's the same interviewing technique I have to resort to with the 9-year-old children I teach when they misbehave. To hear you using it to good effect on an MP was such a refreshing change. Too often these people are allowed to ignore the truth and not give a proper answer.
Of course I presume you followed up with an ever-so-slightly-disappointed look whilst praising Mr Hutton for his honesty and reminding him that if he had admitted to using bad language straight away he wouldn't have had to miss his break...
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Yeah, and he has made the weather bad.
We've had Scottish weather since Gordon Brown has been PM.
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yooo're righ' Loo'erni-tah!
and of course the Scotch-soaked BBC wouldn't dare bring that up with their so obvious above-the-North-ern bias!
aggh! typical!!!
WHERE'S THE VOICE OF REASON??????????
Strangled by the tartaned fist of power!!
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This thread's headline misses a word out, Eddie.
John Hutton's Wikipedia entry faithfully records it thank goodness.
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(#17) Whats Christian socialism? (being sarcastic). Did you ask Jesus what he thinks of it all? Whatever it is - don't think it would involve being patronised by a radio 4 blogger. What is politics? Is it something that we should reduce to polarised similar interest groups and call them names like, Tory, New Labour, Old labour, Lib Dems....or is it a way of life? Hang on...were back to Christianity again. My son, a healthy tax paying 30 something said one of the most profound things I'd heard in years recently..."Dad, I have never heard anything to come out of the mouth of a politician that has ever had any effect on me or my life". "So I don't get involved". Now tell me, how are people like this meant to be engaged? Sorry for the delay in replying.
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ExpectingtheEnd;
Have you tried expecting a beginning?
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Possibly the best bit of radio I have heard all year.
Starting with flattery, various items thoughtfully probed until the crux of the matter is reached...you did leave the stink bomb in the Headmaster's office, Hutton? You know; I know; you know I know; the listeners have all grassed you up... now come on, it will be easier all round if you just tell me...
And then the moment of tension relieved with more thoughtful discussion.
Absolutely superb...Mr Mair, you are to be congratulated!
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Too much to hope for, Comrage?
On offer to the nation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2009/12/pm_glass_box_17.shtml#P90181849
Sounds good, Comrude, 'cos there is a majority below that income standard in this country of real working people and the intergenerationally unfairly rich and (/or) work avoiding bourgoisie are asleep:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2009/12/pm_glass_box_17.shtml#P90181852
So, Comraid, let it be that you yourself gave the order.
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John Hutton's opinion of Gordon Brown should be judge in the context of the person who made the criticism. There is a particular biblical image involving beams and motes with which Dr. Hutton should, perhaps, familiarise himself.
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Fabulous interview. I was listening while trundling round my local Sainsbury's and hope I wasn't distressing my fellow shoppers with my loud snorts. Well done for polite but firm and persistent interviewing that really paid off.
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Eddie--Thanks for the excellent interview with Mr. Hutton....
=Dennis Junior=
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As Private Eye might say....'well goodbye John Hutton, Blairite loyalist'..
My memory of Mr Hutton goes back to 1996 and a meeting of over 50 members in the Quaker hall in Penrith, Cumbria, where we were discussing BSE and the involvement of our MP, David Maclean, then Food Safety Minister. LOL
Mr Hutton was surly and unfriendly and clearly not relishing the company of a bunch of Old Labour lefties. I was the PPC.
I asked him if he thought the New Labour Project was going a bit fast for 'traditional' Labour members.....He replied "They don't matter, they have nowhere else to go."
Well, they found somewhere to go. New Labour has about 150,000 members today as opposed to the 400,000 they had then and the Penrith Labour Party Branch has all but disappeared. In the last council bi-election in Penrith in October The BNP got 104 votes. New Labour got 26.
Well done Mr Hutton and all the bourgeoise entryists who destroyed the Labour Party.. Enjoy your gilded retirement. I am now in the Green Party with many other Old Labourites..
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Missed Pm but heard it on the BBC1 news last night - excellent!
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I can't really say that I'm inclined to support any political party with particular fervour; I don't really mind any politician so long as they are getting on with the task of running the country, and making a reasonable job of it. Thus comparisons between new Labour, old Labour, Tories, LibDem SocDem and the Greens leave me a little cold.
But.
I've just heard from an admittedly less reputable news organ that PM the interest payable on our national deficit now exceeds the budget for education. Is there not a point at which we have to concede that the current experiment with the governance of the UK has been an unmitigated disaster? I am unable to identify a government in the last 100 years which has done as badly as this one. I voted for Blair first time round as I was disillusioned by the moral collapse of the Tories, and for Lib Dems last time around as I was disgusted by the unstoppable warmongering of this current government. I find myself profoundly angry with the incessant lies and miss-management of Gordon Brown and this rather pointless, self serving executive. In the past decade I feel as though we've been witness to the destruction of Britain, with the dismantling of institutions built over many, many decades to preserve the rights of common, average men and women which have been replaced with the inane reality-TV façades of 'cool Britannia'. They've lied about education, they've lied about WMD, they've lied about the economy, they've lied about health reforms, they've lied about pensions, they've lied about the depth of the hole we're in now. I can sum up my feelings for Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and the New Labour experiment in a single sentence.
I despise them.
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oops, didn't mean to sound patronising.
apologies - this was definetly not intended.
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