John Rentoul interviews chair of Progress John Woodcock on music, the general election and internationalism
I have blown John Woodcock’s secret plan. He was going to learn to play bass guitar, re-form his sixth-form band and then, when they had been a success on the club scene, he was going to reveal that he was a member of parliament. But when I arrived in his House of Commons office to interview him, the first thing I saw was a red guitar and amp in the corner.
‘Back when I was at school I only played the tambourine and I sang, so I thought, now I’m moving into my late 30s, trying to strut around the stage with a Liam Gallagher haircut and a percussion instrument is not really acceptable. So I had to learn an instrument, and I thought the bass is supposed to be easy.’ He bought the amp for £6 on eBay, and he and the guitarist said, ‘in that midlife crisis way, “Let’s do it, let’s re-form the band”.’
He goes on, ‘Until you saw that and asked me about it, it was resolutely going to be something that we did in private, until we were really good, but clearly I’ve messed that up by telling you about it before we’ve even got a third member.’
I ask what kind of music he likes. He says he went to see Slow Club in Brixton the night before. He recommends the band’s 2011 album, Paradise, which I have been playing ever since. Before we get on to politics, I ask if he wants to talk about his health, because I admire his openness about his depression but think it nobody’s business if he feels he has done enough. He fell off a ladder two years ago, suffering concussion which triggered the illness. At first his GP said, ‘You have a stressful job, you have a new baby. I think you are suffering from stress.’ He replied, ‘I’m not. I used to work for Gordon Brown. I know what stress is.’
He was prescribed antidepressants. ‘I function perfectly well taking this stuff. It doesn’t turn me into a wide-eyed, loved-up person who wants to be everybody’s best friend. It just lifted the black moods that otherwise I was getting into. I really think we must not label people taking antidepressants as failures. People say, “Half the nation is on drugs, aren’t we completely messed up?” No, actually, half the nation has recognised they have an issue which they are sorting out.’
He had no idea that the effects of concussion could last so long, but at last it has gone. He left the frontbench because of his health in January 2013. ‘Finally having got back the capacity to do things is such a relief.’ This summer he took over from Andrew Adonis as chair of Progress, which readers of this magazine will know is regarded by some as the Blairite ‘faction’ in the Labour party.
He is full of praise for the organisation: ‘Progress has consistently done brilliant things in what in recent years has been an unnecessarily, sillily, hostile environment. The people who run it and its activists haven’t paid any attention to that grumbling and have exemplified what Labour activists can do.’ He challenges anyone to point to a group in the Labour party that is ‘working harder than Progress in getting out on the doorstep’, which is where he says the result of the election will be ‘ground out’.
The first thing he did as chair was to drop the tag ‘New Labour pressure group’. He explains, ‘We weren’t really a pressure group. We are part of the mainstream of the shadow government.’ He points out that Ed Miliband is a former vice-chair of the organisation. ‘Labour’s new mainstream’ is the new tagline. There is, though, a difference of opinion inside and beyond the party that cannot be avoided. Progress was set up in 1996 by people close to Peter Mandelson as a group supportive of Tony Blair’s leadership, and most of its members retain a positive view of Labour’s most successful prime minister. I ask Woodcock how he deals with the fact that so many people hate Blair. ‘It is not useful for people like me to become wrapped up in a conversation about Tony Blair’s legacy, because all the time that we are talking about the past we are missing the chance to talk about the future. But, as you’ve asked the question, it is remarkable how strongly the shadow of Iraq dominates perceptions of Tony. Whether the passage of time allows people to think in a more rounded way about his legacy – my sense is that it will and it is important that it does.’
He remains a committed internationalist, and says that this must mean a preparedness to intervene: ‘It is so important for the world and our position in it that we come to a more nuanced attitude towards, yes, the perils and limitations of intervention, but also sometimes the necessity of it. And I just wish we could talk more about what I believe was the true failure of the Iraq war, which was the failure to properly to support the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein rather than the decision to go to war itself.’
He fears that Labour has withdrawn to a form of internationalism involving only humanitarian aid. ‘We have the capacity and the expertise to do so much more than we have done. There is so much more that we could do. If we are uncomfortable about military intervention, and I understand why, we should be talking about non-military support for struggling states, which is about much more than humanitarian aid.’
As chair of Progress, Woodcock will defend Labour’s record, organise a Labour victory on the doorstep and break down prejudice about mental illness. But probably not be a rock star.
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John Rentoul is chief political commentator at the Independent on Sunday
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