In June, Gerald Kaufman – the second oldest member of the House of Commons – will have been a MP for 43 years, longer than many elected at the last general election have been alive.

He has, he tells me as we settle into his Westminster office, no intention of standing down any time soon. He does admit, though, that he is in the twilight of his time as a member of parliament. ‘The waters will soon close over me’, he remarks after a pause.

Even before being elected in 1970, the member for Manchester Gorton was working in parliament, as a journalist for the Daily Mirror and New Statesman, and then as a member of Harold Wilson’s staff in Downing Street, the ‘kitchen cabinet’.

‘What I do remember was the sheer wondrous novelty of being able to walk into the chamber. I still find it quite remarkable that I can walk in there, and then stand up to make a speech or ask a question.’

Softly spoken he may be, Kaufman has never been afraid to criticise and say how he sees it. It was he who in 1983 dubbed the Labour party’s manifesto ‘the longest suicide note in history’. He says he knew Michael Foot, party leader at the time would have been a ‘disaster’ as prime minister.

Back in the present day, the former shadow foreign secretary is unafraid to put the boot into some of the House’s current members – including some from his own party.

Starting with former Tory MP-turned-fashion blogger Louise Mensch, he tells me there are ‘too many’ people elected with the ‘wrong background and wrong objectives’, who have ‘no aspiration other than to sit on the front benches’ in the chamber.

However, we mention Dan Jarvis, MP for Barnsley Central. Kaufman agrees, saying he brings something different to the house, and is nothing but praise for the former platoon commander, who has served in conflict zones such as Kosovo and Afghanistan.

‘If you are going to use this place, you have to bring something with you,’ Kaufman explains. ‘When you look at Dan, he’s been an army officer, so he has got that background to bring with him and be an effective MP.’

In his guide to what makes a good parliamentarian, he continues to argue that a good MP is what you make of it. But, he adds, the key to it all is the link between the member and their constituents – something he argues many MPs could be better at. After a temporary interruption, as his office telephone rings, he finishes where he left off, and adds, ‘There’s too many members in the house, who bring nothing to the job, other than previous political work in Westminster.’

The 82-year-old, who isn’t himself married, recounts how he recently became ‘annoyed’ by a debate in the Commons, concerning more ‘family friendly’ hours for MPs.

‘I wasn’t even going to go into the debate, let alone speak in it,’ Kaufman tells me.

‘However, after hearing three or four speeches, I explained that if you want a family friendly job to suit your own personal requirements, then go and look for something else, because this is not what you have signed up for.’

He feels the changes to parliament over the years had were made to make life ‘easier’ for those involved, not to pass legislation, debate or present a case.

‘When I was first elected, we could have all-night sittings. They weren’t very nice but it was a way of forcing the government to yield certain things, which they wouldn’t have done otherwise,’ he explains. ‘Someone said in the debate that they want to make the House more efficient. But it’s not about this, it is about being effective.’

This is not the most politically correct of views, and may jar with efforts currently being made to get more women into politics; the workings of parliament, and its culture, remain prohibitive on a number of fronts.

Another break with the past of late has been Kaufman’s relationship with the sitting prime minister. Throughout four decades in parliament, Kaufman has seen eight different premiers at the dispatch box – Ted Heath, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron – and, he says, that he got on well with each, irrespective of their political party – until, that is, Cameron took his place on the Treasury bench.

‘Major and Thatcher I had a good personal relationship with – you don’t have to agree with somebody in order to get on. However, I have no personal relationship with [Cameron].

‘He’s an extraordinarily arrogant ’ Kaufman says with a sense of dismay, and rising anger at what Cameron is doing to the country.

As for his own party, the MP says Labour’s best two prime ministers were Wilson and Blair. Brown, who he had a very good friendship with, and still does, he says to me was ‘never quite cut out’ for the job.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary groups for dance and opera, Kaufman thinks it important for MPs to have other interests outside Westminster. He himself enjoys films, the theatre and watching ballet, as well as travelling as much as he can and reading. ‘I have always taken the view that those whose interest is only in politics is an incomplete person.

‘Obviously politics has always been central to most of my life, but there is a hell of a lot more things in life,’ he adds. ‘If I had nothing to look forward to, other than coming here, I would find that a pretty barren kind of life.’

His knighthood in 2004 may not have been something he’d been looking towards, but he decided to accept when it was offered.

‘It came as a total surprise. I never expected such a thing; neither did I aspire for such a thing. I wasn’t sure I even wanted it. But when it came my way, I thought I would accept it.

‘There were two lots of people who were really pleased about it. One of them was my family and then my constituents who loved it. And it has done me no harm.’

As our chat nears to a close, Kaufman who has only in the last few years learnt how to use a computer, says he doesn’t have any ‘burning ambitions’ left, but wants to see certain causes succeed, such as a way forward for Palestinian statehood.

‘I don’t have ambitions any more. I have things that I am very strongly interested in and things that I am very active in campaigning for, but it is not the same as having an ambition.’

And when ‘the waters close’ over him, how does he want to be remembered? ‘I know it sounds very prim, but I hope people will feel that I made a difference and was someone who cared about parliament.’

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Andrew Bettridge is a journalism graduate and tweets @AndyBettridge1

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Photo: Manchester Friends of the Earth