YouSaid · the spoken record

Jon Trickett

lines on the record: 38
first: 2019-09-13
most recent: 2019-09-13
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

“I've been saying that there's a problem, a deep, profound chronic divide in our society all of my life. And my experience is a child right the way through have led me to the same, even the ones I discuss at school with you, led me to the same conclusion. I think it's now become a serious problem. The question is, who will capture the zeitgeist? Will it be a sort of reactionary, backward-looking, xenophobic kind of nationalist attack on foreigners? Or will it be a more progressive way of tackling the issues, which is our way. However, my view and my advice to the Labour colleagues is that we cannot become a party of the establishment or appear to be that because the country needs big, dramatic change. And that, I think, is a central message of this last decade or so.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My heritage is, as I've described it, I did take a guy to court who attacked me with vile and I hate the experience. I've witnessed it and we've got to make sure it's out of our party.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, generally speaking, my view, let me tell you what I think was happening when I first joined the NEC. Often you'll get accusations against somebody for political reasons. It's a political enemy. They want to cause difficulty for that person. And what then is the NEC is then asked to form an initial prima facie judgment as to whether or not there's enough evidence for it to be referred onto our disciplinary process. I didn't like the idea that the left should vote for left wing people who have been accused and against right-wing people. So I haven't done that. I've tried to take each case on its merits. I can't recall such an incident happening, but I'm not going to say it didn't happen. But look, the evidence is put in front of you as the initial investigation, and then it's referred on. Generally speaking,”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He spends so much time with people. Some people claim to be my friends, and I've never met them before. I met somebody the other day who said she knew me for years. So it's been difficult. I think we've got to the right place in the end. It took some time. Remember, we don't run boss politics under Jeremy. It isn't that kind of operation. Perhaps some people think politics should be boss politics. But Jeremy works by consensus and he's got people who he employees who are expected to do with it and it's taken longer than it should have done.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've had many conversations with him about a range of subjects, one of which is anti-Semitism. And you can bust? It's been a very, very tough, but fair conversations. There's not an anti-Semitic or a racist bone in Jeremy's body, but I accept that it's been difficult. It's taken some time.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the other thing is when I was at school in North Lee, I went to school in North Leeds in the end. There was a significant portion of that school were Jewish. I saw incidents and occasionally fisticuffs because of anti-Semitism. And I've witnessed it on and off for most of my life. The area I represent now, it doesn't have a significant Jewish community at all.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My Jewish blood, and it was a difficult decision to go to the police, but it was a right thing to do. It was about the time of the Holocaust day and it pricked my conscience. I rang the police up after a couple of hours and thinking about it. And he was found guilty. So probably one of the few people who at the head of the party has experienced that sort of level of race hate for the Jewishness.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As you know, and a body of listeners know, the Jewish people regard it as matrilineal, so you take it from your mother and your mother's mother. From that point of view, I am Jewish and that is a fact. By the way, I was attacked two and a half years ago in the streets of my constituency by a man who said we're going to fill the streets with patriots and wipe you kind of people out. And I thought about it. It was quite a confrontation, by the way. He didn't say it nicely. And eventually I went to the police.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My maternal family were refugees from what was then the Russian Empire back in the 1870s. And I grew up very much aware of that part of my ethnicity, I suppose. My mother was very conscious of it. I've got cousins and other relatives who are Jewish. And it's very important part of who I am to be aware of all of that incident.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but if I were to say to them, do you think the same old gang that's run out of country for the last century and a half should continue to run it for the next ten or fifteen years, they're going to say bloody hell no, that's not what we want. So I think we have to offer a new politics. By the way, I think politics for the center and for the left is about hope of change and a better future. If people don't believe in politics anymore, they'll more be inspired by fear of the future than hope of a better future. We have to convince people there's a different way of doing politics. And that's, I think, part of the Jeremy, you know, the Jeremy narrative.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the danger is that we will fail to develop what I would call a majoritarian politics. There's huge numbers of labour seats. Also the vast majority, the majority of Labour seats voted for Brexit. And even in the seats which voted for Remain, there were large numbers of Labour voters who also voted for Brexit too. We have to listen to those people. We have to show we understand them, we are alive to their concerns, and we need a Brexit policy which deals with that, but we need a transformational policy of the Kanye was talking about in Manchester at Peter Lew event, which offers change, real change, and gives people back agency and control of their own lives.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If people don't listen to you, there's clearly the possibility, and I've been warning this since 2005 when I wrote an article about the missing millions of voters, that the Labour Party might become too much on one leg. Well, did Halloween say you've got to have two wings to fly, left wing and a right wing? I'm interested in the working class representation. And I think it's very important we don't turn our back on the north of England. By the way, north of England characteristics can be found even in London, in Hastings and elsewhere. Those communities who feel extremely unhappy about the fact that they've been left behind and abandoned, that is one of the Labour Party's historic missions, never to become detached from those people.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, they perfectly well know. It's just like my family were not educated but were highly intelligent, some of the most intelligent people I've met were not in parliament, we're on the building sites. So let's be clear about that. They've worked it out. They know why the pits were closed. I don't think they'll ever vote conservative. However, I think people who come to the view that we can't go on as a country any longer in the way that we are doing. So this view that the Labour Party came to with the election of Jeremy Corbyn that we need a transformational politics rather than the traditional politics, traditional versus transformation, is where we need to be to be able to speak, I think, to both sides of the divide. And look, this is not easy because people have become transfixed by the events in parliament. When I speak in depth to people at the co-op in our village, they first of all get it off the chest. And then we'll have a proper talk about what's wrong with the country, how do I put it right.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, let's not name names, but you've got one. That, it seems to me, turns the back on precisely the community and the family I came from and the people I represent. And therefore, I haven't been prepared to advocate that position. And when we got to a while ago, the idea we should have a referendum, but on the referendum, it should be either remain or an unacceptable Brexit. I did not think that was right because I could not say to voters in my area, you should vote for Remain because the Brexit deal is so awful”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think I've made it clear from day one. I've been in all of the key discussions in the Labour Party leadership on Brexit and other matters too. What you cannot have is a majoritarian politics which turns its back on 48 or 52% of the population. You cannot do that. Now there are some people who are saying, well, we should just become purely Remain. Many of our more voluble spokespersons have said that. That's it.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I represent a community, as you just say to it, which is massively pro-Brexit. But what's interesting is I have six wards. Four of them were massively in favour of Brexit. They're the most held back and deprived parts of the community. The ones which were running the mines, digging the wealth of our country, the other two were slightly more prosperous. They did not vote for Brexit in the same numbers. So I think the Labour Party is having to find a position which can speak to both parts of the debate and I think we're finally getting close to that position.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is a long established debate. Unfortunately, I discussed it with Ralph Mulliband, although when I was working with him, we have this expression on the left, the old society is dying, but the new is not yet ready to be born. So you'll be familiar with that expression. What happens if there's a prolonged crisis and the old continues to be decaying, as I believe it is, but we haven't managed to create a new way of running the country is all sorts of perverse moments arise, one of which is a strong man or woman come to that figure dominating the whole of the political landscape. I think that's probably what Boris Johnston thinks he is, though, as I say in my speech. He clearly isn't. He's a joke figure. I think he would like to be the person who stands above the political landscape and dominates it. The trouble is, if he were to achieve that, which I don't think he can because he's a comic figure, he would not resolve the underlying crisis of stasis of a society which is in lockdown. It would take us.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I felt was we funded the public services which needed to be done after years of Tory government, but the reforms we introduced were not going to help people in where I represent. So I think it was the reform agenda which particularly troubled me. Let me give you an example. If you are a parent in London where there's a high school every mile and a half or something, you can perhaps make a case for increased parental choice. But if you represent an area like mine, 23 mining villages with probably four, I think high schools, with no buses between one village and the other, there is no way that parental choice can deliver reform. So there are a whole series of public sector reforms I felt deeply uncomfortable with. However, when I was lead of leads, I had done a lot of public sector reform, but in ways which were meant to deliver for all of the communities of Leeds in those days.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think what happened was somewhere along the way, I was elected, as we've just discussed, to Lead City Council. Within a couple of months, I became the chair of finance. And within two or three years, I'd become the leader. When you're the leader of a council or leader of anything, you have to make decisions which are sometimes difficult to explain to the party and to activists. So when I came to be an MP, I thought, well, I understand the problems which Mr Blair's facing. I thought I'd just come here and be loyal and work for the constituency. So when we came into government, I went straight into working with Peter Mandelson, and I attended many of the famous early meetings in number 10 and in the cabinet office in those times. But it became clear to me, by the way, that the Labour government wasn't going to address the needs of people like us, as my granddad has said, all those years before. So in a way, I was quite glad to get out. And then as you know,”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's a funny story because the first time I went to the Labour Party meeting was in 1969. I heard that Barbara Castle was coming to a meeting, a public meeting on York Road in Leeds, wasn't far away from where I lived. But she was coming at that time, Wilson and Castle, Mr. Wilson, the Prime Minister and Barbara Castle, were trying to shackle up the unions with this thing called in place of strife. I don't suppose many listeners are old enough to remember it. I thought I'm a trade unionist. The Labour Party is a working class party. How can they? So I went to the first Labour Party meeting ever to protest. So in a way, I think I've always probably felt a bit of an outsider, generally speaking. Maybe I've got, you know, I don't know if it's a chip on my shoulder. But no, I've always thought the Labour Party was our party, but it's been a struggle from time to time to make sure it doesn't become a purely middle class party. And that, I think, is one of the central...”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It made me laugh, but I think between laughter and anger, perhaps that's not such a big gap as we all imagine. It made me laugh. The lads on the building site when I went back, they thought it was absolutely hilarious that I wasn't allowed in. He's getting a bit jumped up. It's John. We've cut him down to size kind of thing. Occasionally, I feel angry about the exclusion from so much of our society of people from my background. Obviously, I'm now a professional politician, have been for a long time, but I still identify with how I grew up. And I feel the process of exclusion of those people is really a flaw in our democracy.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Were you making a point? All this was just what you're wearing. No, it never entered my head. I just was told after being elected you get a note from the chief executive or the returning officer, you need to come in, sign these forms. I never thought about it. Never entered my head. I went, I just drove there. I had a big red van, not a white van. It was a red one. And the porters were very surprised on reflection, I probably should have got changed.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, this is a strange thing. But in a way, it tells the narrative story of what it's about me as well because I'm elected to the council. It's complete shock and surprise to me. I don't know how it happened still to this day. But anyway, I did. I went from the building site straight to the council to sign in in my overalls and working clothes. One washes one's hands, as they say, as posh people say. They wouldn't let me in. They said I had to go to the tradesman entrance. I said, look, I've come to sign in. I'm a counsellor. Oh, no, no, no. You've been mistaken. Go around the back to where the tradesman are walking in and out. And in the end, I used to get through the door. They accepted it.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is somewhere no idea where it is not tempted to visit, however. What I might do if I ever retire, but I've also got my plumbing tools in case I need to go back to work for a living one day.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was a big influence, but in a curious way. I mean, he was very interested in politics, the nature of the state and government. And it was a charismatic figure in those days, as you're probably aware. And obviously his young family, David Mulliband, Ed Mulliband, were part of the scene. He was in Leeds at Leeds University where I went there. But it all went wrong because one day I went in, Ralph says, how are you doing? I was trying to work on a PhD. How are you doing, John? I said, I'm doing quite well, actually. But he said, well, the money's run out, so I can't keep you any longer. You've got to go. And by then I had a wife and two children. So I went back to work, which is what you do. So I went to work back on the, you know, with my dad, with my granddad, and then on my own. In the building industry”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which I'd come to much later in life, I met a lord who owns a big house, an estate. I mean, it's been in the family for hundreds of years. Our houses were all cleared away. All of these things kind of went through my mind as I was working. And I thought, I must start reading books. I went to a further education college. I went to university. I finished up working with Ralph Mulliband of all people on a postgraduate degree.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wasn't the best behaved in the class. It was my homework and things like that. I don't think I was a disruptive person, but I think I probably didn't engage with the subjects. And the point I was going to make was when I looked a bit later on, not only was my house where I was a child slung cleared, my dad's house, my mum's house, all of my grandparents' houses were all cleared. Nothing left of the working class communities.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What happened? All of my family were very intensely interested and alive in everything that was happening around us, though they weren't educated. They were lovely and I loved them, as we all of our families. So we were a family which was engaged in what was happening, including in politics. My granddad and his first wife were also interested in politics. And gradually I began to listen to think about this thing my granddad said about the schools don't work for people like us. Well, people like us is quite a sophisticated concept when you reflect on it. And the more I thought about it, I thought, actually, why did I have that experience go? Clearly, I wasn't a great well-behaved person.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Schools, they're not meant for people like us. He said people like us do different things and I learned the value of and the importance of manual work, people creating houses. Later on I was helping with building houses, homes for people which are still there today and that's been a central part of my philosophy from that day to this.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, here's a funny thing, and it's funny how conversations I'm 69 now. But I remember my dad pulling me to one side. Occasionally in life you have father-son conversations. We didn't have many, but my dad said to me, right, he says, John, you're off to grammar school tomorrow. He says, I haven't got a clue. My mum's left school when she were 13. As I say, I left when I was 15. My dad left when he was 14. He said, I can't help you. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what it's going to be like. So I remember it as clearly as anything and my dad sort of expressing for the first time in his life he couldn't advise me. I was 10 or 11 years old. But look, when I, the head teacher invited me not to return, let's put it that way, I went to work with my granddaughter for a while. I was a plumber. He said, oh, John, he says, I know you're not happy. You think you'd let your mum and dad down? I did. I felt I'd let my mum and dad down by not getting exams. And he said, but don't worry, he said.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think probably I'm not a great introspective person, but probably been torn away from the community where I've been brought up because of the slum clearances. And then the experience of going to a school where I didn't feel valued at all, probably those two experiences. But when I left school when I was 15.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I did. Well, I still try to. So I've got two languages Yorkshire and English. But the funny thing is, so I fail the exam and we were then streamed. We were streamed into a set. Everybody else learned a second language, German or whatever. We were still struggling with English. When I got to 15, the head teacher came to see me, Mrs. Trickett. He said, I rather think you probably shouldn't come back, even though I should not have left school until I was 16. So I left school with really no meaningful exam results of any kind.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Overalls. Well, look, it's a funny story. I mean, let me just try to explain what happened in my life. I was born in a very solid working class family. My dad was an engineer. As many other people were, we lived in an area of inner city Leeds, which was condemned as slums and eventually were cleared. We left home when I was nine or ten because of the projected clearance of the slums. And I think that does form part of my background. When I got to school, finally we settled down to another school. I did pass my 11 plus. It's a funny story. When I got there, grammar school I was in did an exam after two months in French. What I discovered was all of the other primary school feeders of that grammar school were teaching French to 9, 10 and 11 years. We were still struggling with English.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, look, maybe some parts of that. But no, I feel I came into politics from a particular background. I always felt that there was a mismatch between ordering people's lives and the British establishment.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I fear, and I've been saying this for a generation really, is that there is a crisis of representation. There's almost a sense of an insurgent feeling amongst the wider population. It's been going on beyond the crisis. I believe that Brexit is actually an expression of something fundamental underlying a fractured society, a society where millions of people feel that they're unrepresented. And the crisis of institutions we've seen now is an expression of something much more profound. As you know, I've been talking about this for a long, long time, but I never expected it quite to emerge in the way it has.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is the worst example of how our democracy isn't working properly that you could possibly imagine? And now to imagine the courts, the government and the parliament, which are the three wings as everybody knows, of a state structure in democracy, all at odds with each other, as it appears, this is, as we know, it's unprecedented. And it does say to me that the crisis of the structures that we use to govern our country are no longer sustainable and we do have to make some big changes.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had he never claimed to be a saint. He was a good man. and injustice had no place in his world. Decency and fairness did. And he fought for them all of his life. We have always needed them and we need them still.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“May be surprised that I, a lifelong conservative, should be delivering a tribute to a former leader of the Liberal Democrats. Was a political opponent who became a friend to cherish.”
2019-09-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Jon Trickett One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source