Bring back Alan Johnson to be Labour’s campaigner-in-chief, says Prescott

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has used his Sunday Mirror column to call for the return of Alan Johnson to frontline politics. Prescott believes that Johnson’s ability has a communicator is something missing from the Labour frontbench and would be a valuable asset to the election campaign. Prescott said:

“Alan Johnson needs to be Labour’s new campaigner-in-chief. He’s a fantastic communicator,has bags of real-life experience and talks in a language people understand.”

“He would need to rejoin the shadow cabinet with the aim of rallying our members, engaging with the public to get Labour’s message across and winning the next election.

He has no ambitions to be leader, which would make him an ideal chairman, putting members – not himself – first.”

Johnson was Miliband’s first-choice Shadow Chancellor, but resigned for personal reasons in 2010 and has since seemed content on the backbenches, using his lower profile to speak candidly (yet always loyally) on television, where he has impressed as a semi-regular on This Week. Just this week, former MP Parmjit Dhanda wrote on LabourList in praise of Johnson’s recent performance on Question Time.

Prescott is at pains to ensure his piece is not read as an attack on Harriet Harman, the Deputy Leader, praising her “guts” in taking on Murdoch and the “sterling work” she has done on women’s representation (an interesting point in itself, considering Harman attacked Brown for abolishing the Deputy Prime Minister role after she took over from Prescott), but points out she is holding down four jobs, arguing:

“Labour needs someone who can give all their time to talking to the public and reassuring them that the party understands their concerns and is the best team to help them.”

However, Harman is unlikely to be taken with Prescott’s recommendation of Johnson for a role that sounds peculiarly similar to the one fulfilled for three election campaigns – especially as she defeated Johnson in the election for the job in 2007.