Half an hour with “the Oracle”

Vernon Coaker has something to say. The Labour Party needs to listen…

A few weeks ago I interviewed Labour’s new policy chief Jon Cruddas. I wanted to get to the bottom of how the party would re-engage with working people, a topic Cruddas has devoted much time to. When Jon Cruddas speaks on such issues, people listen. But it seems that when Vernon Coaker speaks, it is Jon Cruddas who listens. He called him “an oracle” when it comes to the aspirations of working people and was effusive in his praise.

This was a man I had to meet.

So last week I went to Coaker’s Westminster office to see what the Oracle had to say for himself. The office itself is one of the more grand and foreboding I’ve been in. Wood panels. Chiming clocks. The kind of office that looks like its not meant to be touched. It doesn’t suit Coaker. He’s anything but foreboding. In fact he’s friendly and approachable. He offers me a cup of tea. I relax, slump into a comfortable chair, and begin.

Vernon has been Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary for nearly a year now, a job that asks much, but gives little as far as the Westminster village is concerned. So I ask him – do we still need a Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary in a post-devolution world? I am evidently not the first person to ask this question…No elephant trap this. His answer is rehearsed but comfortable:

“If you look at the tax and spend policies [that affect Northern Ireland] – they’re set here.”

“Of course there are still issues of national security…but there are still issues – the big decisions, that are made [in Westminster]. Welfare reform, those things are decided here.”

“Northern Ireland needs a secretary of state to be their voice in London because big decisions are still taken here.”

Undoubtedly true, but that still doesn’t make it an easy job, or one that is likely to catch the headlines. This is no longer a job for the superstar politician – Mowlam, Mandelson – this is a tough, and often thankless task. Which is a shame really, because Coaker is exactly the kind of politician I’d like to see become a superstar. Outgoing, down to earth, funny, dedicated, sharp.

His attitude to visiting Northern Ireland (which he does around once every two weeks) sums up why I find him so likeable, he’s not just interested in meeting “the great and the good”. He wants to also meet ordinary people and find out about their lives. An endearing trait. He runs towards the people not from them.

I decide this is a good opportunity to bring up the Cruddas interview and ask if Coaker really is an Oracle. He smiles, half flattered half embarrassed:

“It was nice of Jon to say that…we all get slightly embarrassed when people say nice things about you.”

Now you see I think Coaker’s wrong actually – I think most politicians would be absolutely delighted to to talked of in such terms. Embarrassment isn’t the default reaction of the modern day frontline politician. It’s to his credit that he seems far more embarrassed than anything else. It’s a very human reaction. Coaker is a very human politician.

Like they should be.

That said, he’s still very on message – few aren’t – and he’s keen to lay much of the credit for any contributions he may have made at the shadow cabinet table at the door of the leader. “Ed Miliband is very open to debate and discussion”, he says. Whilst some seen to find Miliband’s shadow cabinet meetings somewhat unfocused, Coaker seems to relish them. No wonder he caught Cruddas’s attention. He also seems genuinely enthused by Miliband’s attempts to increase the number of people from manual professions, white working class, in politics. This, it seems, began when he was a teacher:

“I remember one of the essays I did when I was at teacher training college…was “what’s the link between educational acheivement and social background?” and when I taught you could choose which type of school you wanted to go to…so I said I’d like to teach in an inner city comprehensive.”

“The motivation for me was always about these communities and raising up the whole community. That’s always been important to me.”

For Coaker, raising aspirations – of the party as well as the community it seeks to serve – is crucial:

“It’s clear that to win the next election we don’t just need to be a party, we need to be a movement for change.”

He argues that if you can show people that you can make change in their lives and their area “you can inspire people to come with you”:

“We’ve earned the right since the last election to be listened to, that was a long hard slog…for a long time nobody was listening. But I think we’ve got to the point now where people actually listen.”

Coaker didn’t join the party “because of five top policies”, it was because he thought things could be better, that people shouldn’t have an unfair advantage because they had a better start in life:

“You’ve got to inspire people. That what moves people.”

Mostly, he seems restless for change, and so he should be. Often politicians seem comfortable with themselves, with the job, with the status. Not this one. He wants to win, and win big:

“The big issue for us is not only identifying X number of Labour voters to win – I’m not stupid about it, I know that’s important – but it’s also about how you get the millions of people who say “you’re all the same, nobody makes any difference”. How do we inspire them to believe that actually the Labour Party offers that alternative? I think that’s what Ed Miliband is starting to get to and the party is starting to get to?”

“If you win massively you’ve got a legitimacy to do certain things”

And big things certainly need to be done.

This is a man with big hopes for his party. No playing it safe and trying to “goal hang” your way to government here. He avoids policies – a curse that afflicts most Labour MPs at present – but the vision at least is expansive. In part, that’s because this is someone who has worked incredibly hard for their seat.

He was one of the 1997 intake, but while many have fallen by the wayside he’s still here. He first won his seat from a Tory (Andrew Mitchell as it happens, sadly we talked before “GateGate”) and has gone on to make the seat his own. He’s earned a strong reputation by standing up for local people (and he shows me one of his direct mails – which he’s clearly pleased with) so when he talks about community activism, not as a recent convert, but as someone who is clearly passionate about it – you listen:

“[With community organising] Labour becomes a part of the change…You don’t just need people joining the party, you need the party standing alongside the community group, the residents group, the tenants association, the park action group, the trade unions, the domestic violence action group.”

But there’s a catch:

“There has to be an integrity to it”.

He’s right of course. You have to do it because that’s what you’re in politics to do, not just because it might win you you votes. Because if it’s the latter, the electorate will figure you out in an instant, and you’ve got no chance.

Fortunately for Vernon Coaker, I think he’s got integrity, and I’m sure the public at large would think so too. I hope it’s not to long before they get that chance – because Vernon Coaker’s a man with something to say. I just hope the party is listening…