From post office to Home Office

摘要

Contrary to the popular view that the Home Office is a politician's graveyard the last Home Secretary before Theresa May takes the opposite view; Alan Johnson, who occupied the post in 2009/10 points out to The MJ that '12 former Home Secretaries have gone on to become Prime Minister' including the present occupant of No 10, which can only be good news for Sajid Javid.Mr Johnson however is not one of them. For a moment after Gordon Brown lost the 2019 election and Labour was considering a coalition with the Liberal Democrats under another leader he did consider 'putting my hat in the ring.' In the end the opportunity passed, he backed David Miliband in the Labour leadership polls that summer, was briefly Shadow Chancellor, led Labour's Remain campaign in the EU referendum and stepped down as MP last year. His focus now is on writing books, having published three successful autobiographical accounts of his upbringing in a council flat and as a postman and head of the post workers' union, and is planning to write a thriller. He also appears on BBC's late night politics show This Week.