I have no idea if the story is true - and Alan Johnson has shown no enthusiasm for being Labour leader when he has been asked to stand or lead a coup in the past - but the Mirror is reporting this evening:
Moderate Labour MPs want veteran MP Alan Johnson to step in as caretaker leader if they manage to oust Jeremy Corbyn .
Four senior sources including members of the shadow cabinet have said they see the former Home Secretary as the best man to unite the party if Mr Corbyn was forced to step down.
One shadow cabinet source said it was “a case of when, not if” Mr Corbyn is forced out by disgruntled MPs.
Liberal England: circulating unfounded rumours since 2004.
There is no doubt about the bust up of the day. It is Alan Johnson's pummelling of Simon Hardy from what is laughing called 'Left Unity' on the Daily Politics this lunchtime.
Johnson was absolutely right to question Hardy's blithe assumption that only his groupuscule of the left stands against racism, austerity and war.
He was right to defend the record of the Labour governments of which he was a part:
we introduced the minimum wage, when we introduced the education maintenance allowance, when we introduced sure start children’s centres, when we reduced child poverty, when we attacked pensioner poverty, when we gave trade unionists the right to be represented, the right not to be sacked for going on strike.
Part of Labour's problem is that it has made so little effort to defend the Blair and Brown years. Blair, like Harold Wilson before him, has become a nonperson despite winning multiple elections for the party.
Where Johnson was completely wrong was where he complained that Hardy is "a middle-class intellectual".
Of course he is. Labour needs middle-class intellectuals. Labour wins when it manages to persuade both the working class and middle-class intellectuals to vote for it.
Yes, it must be galling for someone like Johnson to be lectured on the meaning of socialism, but his attitude does remind you of stories about how moderate Labourites used to behave when they were in the ascendancy back in the Fifties and Sixties.
Then, if someone applied to join the party, the local membership secretary would call. If he saw books in the house the candidate would be told that the party was full.
Still, if Labour is to return to sanity, let alone government, then the party's mainstream will have to emulate Johnson's fighting spirit.
