YouSaid · the spoken record

John McDonnell

lines on the record: 68
first: 2018-10-26
most recent: 2018-10-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, I came across Das Capital when I was a teenager. You do the communist manifesto first. You look at that and then you go into capital. And then you start reading, but I was reading more broadly as well. As a youngster, I sent a Christmas card to Harold Wilson. Say, Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. Well done, you do it. I think this is much we're in 1964.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You don't describe him as a believer. Basically, what you're trying to do is as you develop your political ideas, one of the key things for me is you need to be well read. One thing I got from my mum as well, as a kid, I'd never sleep. I just never slept. So my mum took me down the doctors once and said, he's never sleeping. She said, and the doctor said, is he going to the library more regularly, or regularly enough? So my mum would take me to the library every week. We'd stack up with books. And she'd let me read.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was off to China. He was negotiating with the Chinese. I said to him, This might be useful for him. I did a quote. Oh dear, I know, I know. Got me into all sorts of trouble. And someone asked me the other day, well, why did you do a little third book? And I said, well, does Capital comes in three volumes and it's quite heavy to throw across the room?”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know that you can get a bit of psychology and all of this. But look, for me, the Catholic Church gave me a structure to my life and a belief system, which I was devoted to. And I thought I generally thought I did have a vocation. But as you get into teenage years and you think more broadly, etc., and I joke about girls and all the rest, but I came to the view, actually, no, I didn't have a vocation first of all. And then, yes, distance myself from the church itself. And my politics ran alongside the Catholicism, though. They were integrated to a certain extent. And it was based around that sense you get both in socialism through trade unionism and through Catholicism and other religions as well, that sense of community and the role that you have to play in society as well.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're frankly just making ends. No, no, we were getting by and I was working. What happened to me is I went from primary school, I did my 11 plus, went to a local grammar school, and then typical Catholic Irish Catholic family. Parish priest comes along, said he's going to mass an awful lot of times, and he thought he's got a vocation. I said, oh, yes. Might have. So off I go to a Catholic boarding school for a few years, decide I haven't got a vocation, and it was largely, I think, because, well, I discovered girlfriends, basically.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To a certain extent, because the Liverpool connection, I became much more aware, as we all did, into the 70s rather than the 60s themselves”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Typical liberal Irish me and my brother brought up as Catholics. In fact, Holy Cross Church is no longer there now. There is a statues and things. But we lived in the street where the Catholic Church was just around the corner. And mass on every Sunday. I'd go to Benediction on the Sunday evening as well. And Oslo Wednesday evening, taught by nuns in the primary school. And so, yeah, so the Catholic Church was an important part to us. For me, actually, during those teenage years, Pope John XXIII was quite important as well, a fairly radical new pope modernizing the church itself. And I think some of those values from the Catholic Church became part of my socialism as well.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was political in the sense of grassroots working class socialist practice. And the working class movement has always been based upon the trade union movement. So that's where our politics came from. Trade unionism is more than everything. I never joined the Labour Party until later. I was more interested in trade unionism and community activism.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Branch secretary, and I read my dad had perfect handwriting, it was really beautiful copper plate handwriting, and I recognised it immediately, but that was the meticulous nature he was. He was a good mathematician.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, you'd have a discussion. Oh, yeah. You'd have an up and down about different things as well. But the thing about my mum, and this is I hope the key thing about her that I love, she's no longer with us. Her central theme is always be kind. Kindness is the most important thing in all of this. But it isn't just about an individual level. You've got to do that in the whole society, whole community. We've got to treat each other properly. And my dad was an active trade unionist. He was branch secretary of the TNG on the buses for 30 years and we'd be involved in negotiations, that sort of in trades council activity. And yeah, on strikes and picket lines, I'd help him. He would collect the subs and I'd help him calculate the subs and all that sort of thing and make sure the books were all marked up. And interestingly enough, I went back to Great Yarmouth because I'd go on the Norfolk Broads and I went for a pint with my brother last summer. And one of the guys who was in his TNG branch brought along the minute books of the branch for when my dad was.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My dad was an active trade unionist, my mum extremely well read and would engage in discussions, we'd always watch the news, we'd listen to the news and have a conversation on what was going on. I can remember that as a kid, and I can remember standing by my mum when she was doing the washing up and I'm doing the drying up and we're listening to the news talking about things as well.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was it that bad? Well, I didn't. I was in Holy Cross Parish. My dad was a docker, my mum was a cleaner, and we lived with my grand so it was in those sort of, this sounds Monty Python, but he's one of those things with a Tim Bath and a toilet outside, that sort of thing. We never thought it was a slum, but that's what sociological studies say now. It was just home to us. And everyone was in the same boat. We never thought we went without anything because mum and dad were at work and we got by. But things looking back on them, yeah, I suppose things were pretty tough, pretty tough for my parents to keep things together, yeah.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even then, yeah, all the way through. into junior office to demonstrate the left can do it and then build it up in that way.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While what I'm doing is designing an alternative system. So I want to do that systematically. I want to do that competently and professionally. I chaired the socialist campaign group for all those years when Jeremy and I were on the back benches. And I organized them in a way where every person in the campaign group had a role to play. So every one of them, I would say, look, you take your brief, make sure that you keep us advised and all the rest, but also work on the base you could be in government tomorrow. Now, at that point in time, it seemed farcical. It seemed so, but I always said, well, actually, things can change.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then before that, I was at the TUC. So as a trade unionist, but I also was played a sort of bureaucratic role too. So I've always had that in me about, you know, you've got to make sure that you present the arguments well, you prepare yourself, you make sure it all adds up, for example. And then in addition to that, but that goes alongside being on the picket line, being on that demonstration and being in that occupation, one wends into another.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People struggle, they think it's two characters, but they struggle to realize the two things are all part of the same character. I've always had a bit of a reputation in the movement being a bit of a bureaucrat because that's my background. And remember I was the chief executive of a local government association and all the rest.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Diane and I go back over 30 years. She's been on platforms with me. She's heard me having a rant and all sorts of things. We've been on piccolo. I think we've been in occupations, you name it we've been in terms of the radical left movement basically. I think she might be hinting at that background. Yeah. Mind you, it hasn't gone away. I'm still on picket lines with her. I'm still on occupation.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The key thing in politics at the moment is about yes the nature of our language, and I'm incredibly careful now, incredibly careful about what I say, but also is the way we treat one another. There is an element of respect that we need to have to one another, I agree, and we're all learning lessons on that, definitely.”
2018-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The John McDonnell One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source