Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG

Just listen to this

Our new Health Secretary has begun his term in office by setting up a review and offering to listen to staff.

Fortunately his remarks during that brief period of candour known as the Deputy Leadership election allow us to discover who exactly he thinks we should be listening to:

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, called for a “proper dialogue” with health workers, who still felt undervalued. He suggested that the Government “listened a bit too much to the BMA [British Medical Association] and not enough to unions like Unison. Maybe what we should be doing is bringing the unions in the health service much more closely into the social partnership”.

In return here are the words used by Unison to explain why they backed Mr Johnson in that contest:

He’s someone we can do business with.

Great.

Alan Johnson gives us his insights on health

Not so long ago, Alan Johnson was being touted as the "Blairite" alternative to Gordon Brown. So complete his sentence, delivered during the contest for deputy leader.

On the NHS, he said, the Government had:

listened a bit too much to the BMA [British Medical Association] and not enough to.....

Patients? No.

The experience of other countries? No

Innovative doctors? No.

Click here to discover the much-celebrated Mr Johnson's view of the voice we need to listen to in order to improve the health service.

No charisma here

That is the conclusion of Anne Perkins watching Alan Johnson for the Guardian. She does, however, think that he has:

A better back story than any Labour leader since Ramsay MacDonald.

I am not convinced that the back story matters anywhere near as much as is commonly believed. What matters is to be able to tell a story of your premiership.