Interview with John O'Farrell
Gavin Edwards | 25.10.2004 20:52
John O'Farrell is the author of the No.1 bestseller Things Can Only Get Better; Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter.
A successful novelist and writer John has also written other well known titles such as The Best a Man Can Get, I Blame the Scapegoats and Global Village Idiot
He has also written for such productions as Spitting Image, Have I Got News For You and on the film Chicken Run.
John is also a regular on the BBC 2 series Grumpy Old Men and writes a Weekly column in the Guardian.
He lives in Clapham with his wife and two children, where he is also the Chair of Governors at Lambeth Academy. As an active member of his local Party, John agreed to give this exclusive interview to LambethLabour.com.
In the 1980's you fought your own political battles as a Labour Party activist in Tory Battersea. What lessons from that time would you like to pass on to Labour Party members in Lambeth today?
The lesson which I hope readers of Things Can Only Get Better will take away with them is the absolute futility of opposition. Labour Councillors in Lambeth must now feel that, to see things done so badly and incompetently and yet to be powerless, is a galling way of spending your time.
The Liberal and Tory gains in the last election shocked all of us who expected us to be in power at a time of a Labour Government which could help Lambeth improve and instead we got an incompetent Liberal Council that doesn’t really get the blame for things that go wrong in Lambeth. I don’t think people realise that they’ve got a Liberal Council.
The trouble with local elections is that people vote on the popularity of the national Government of the day. So they treat it like a popularity test for Tony Blair or Michael Howard.
So the lesson I’d take away is that there is no point in being politics if you’re not going to get in power. So however much the Government sometimes drives me mad its still a thousand times better than if Michael Howard or Margaret Thatcher were in power. So we should never return to the posturing days of the eighties and let the larger goal slip from our view.
Liberal Democrats often present themselves as the cuddly, fluffy, non-ideological alternative to the other main parties. How would you assess the current image of the Liberal Democrats?
Well they try to be all things to all people and end up standing for not very much indeed. In fact many of the Councillors they put up around the country are people who are active in their community and ask them to stand for the Lib Dems. So these people aren’t coming from any ideological or political point of view. They don’t have any sort of guiding star to drive what they do. The result of it is that you tend to get widely divergent opinions within one party. Quite a lot of are maverick councillors who have no theory or set of core values driving them.
The other problem which I’ve always found with Liberals is that, much as I may dislike what the Tories stand for, at least they are capable of a clean election fight. My experience of fighting liberals is that they are the ones that play the dirtiest, particularly with bogus leaflets and false claims.
A successful novelist and writer John has also written other well known titles such as The Best a Man Can Get, I Blame the Scapegoats and Global Village Idiot
He has also written for such productions as Spitting Image, Have I Got News For You and on the film Chicken Run.
John is also a regular on the BBC 2 series Grumpy Old Men and writes a Weekly column in the Guardian.
He lives in Clapham with his wife and two children, where he is also the Chair of Governors at Lambeth Academy. As an active member of his local Party, John agreed to give this exclusive interview to LambethLabour.com.
In the 1980's you fought your own political battles as a Labour Party activist in Tory Battersea. What lessons from that time would you like to pass on to Labour Party members in Lambeth today?
The lesson which I hope readers of Things Can Only Get Better will take away with them is the absolute futility of opposition. Labour Councillors in Lambeth must now feel that, to see things done so badly and incompetently and yet to be powerless, is a galling way of spending your time.
The Liberal and Tory gains in the last election shocked all of us who expected us to be in power at a time of a Labour Government which could help Lambeth improve and instead we got an incompetent Liberal Council that doesn’t really get the blame for things that go wrong in Lambeth. I don’t think people realise that they’ve got a Liberal Council.
The trouble with local elections is that people vote on the popularity of the national Government of the day. So they treat it like a popularity test for Tony Blair or Michael Howard.
So the lesson I’d take away is that there is no point in being politics if you’re not going to get in power. So however much the Government sometimes drives me mad its still a thousand times better than if Michael Howard or Margaret Thatcher were in power. So we should never return to the posturing days of the eighties and let the larger goal slip from our view.
Liberal Democrats often present themselves as the cuddly, fluffy, non-ideological alternative to the other main parties. How would you assess the current image of the Liberal Democrats?
Well they try to be all things to all people and end up standing for not very much indeed. In fact many of the Councillors they put up around the country are people who are active in their community and ask them to stand for the Lib Dems. So these people aren’t coming from any ideological or political point of view. They don’t have any sort of guiding star to drive what they do. The result of it is that you tend to get widely divergent opinions within one party. Quite a lot of are maverick councillors who have no theory or set of core values driving them.
The other problem which I’ve always found with Liberals is that, much as I may dislike what the Tories stand for, at least they are capable of a clean election fight. My experience of fighting liberals is that they are the ones that play the dirtiest, particularly with bogus leaflets and false claims.
John O'Farrell is the author of the No.1 bestseller Things Can Only Get Better; Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter.
A successful novelist and writer John has also written other well known titles such as The Best a Man Can Get, I Blame the Scapegoats and Global Village Idiot
He has also written for such productions as Spitting Image, Have I Got News For You and on the film Chicken Run.
John is also a regular on the BBC 2 series Grumpy Old Men and writes a Weekly column in the Guardian.
He lives in Clapham with his wife and two children, where he is also the Chair of Governors at Lambeth Academy. As an active member of his local Party, John agreed to give this exclusive interview to LambethLabour.com.
In the 1980's you fought your own political battles as a Labour Party activist in Tory Battersea. What lessons from that time would you like to pass on to Labour Party members in Lambeth today?
The lesson which I hope readers of Things Can Only Get Better will take away with them is the absolute futility of opposition. Labour Councillors in Lambeth must now feel that, to see things done so badly and incompetently and yet to be powerless, is a galling way of spending your time.
The Liberal and Tory gains in the last election shocked all of us who expected us to be in power at a time of a Labour Government which could help Lambeth improve and instead we got an incompetent Liberal Council that doesn’t really get the blame for things that go wrong in Lambeth. I don’t think people realise that they’ve got a Liberal Council.
The trouble with local elections is that people vote on the popularity of the national Government of the day. So they treat it like a popularity test for Tony Blair or Michael Howard.
So the lesson I’d take away is that there is no point in being politics if you’re not going to get in power. So however much the Government sometimes drives me mad its still a thousand times better than if Michael Howard or Margaret Thatcher were in power. So we should never return to the posturing days of the eighties and let the larger goal slip from our view.
Liberal Democrats often present themselves as the cuddly, fluffy, non-ideological alternative to the other main parties. How would you assess the current image of the Liberal Democrats?
Well they try to be all things to all people and end up standing for not very much indeed. In fact many of the Councillors they put up around the country are people who are active in their community and ask them to stand for the Lib Dems. So these people aren’t coming from any ideological or political point of view. They don’t have any sort of guiding star to drive what they do. The result of it is that you tend to get widely divergent opinions within one party. Quite a lot of are maverick councillors who have no theory or set of core values driving them.
The other problem which I’ve always found with Liberals is that, much as I may dislike what the Tories stand for, at least they are capable of a clean election fight. My experience of fighting liberals is that they are the ones that play the dirtiest, particularly with bogus leaflets and false claims.
A successful novelist and writer John has also written other well known titles such as The Best a Man Can Get, I Blame the Scapegoats and Global Village Idiot
He has also written for such productions as Spitting Image, Have I Got News For You and on the film Chicken Run.
John is also a regular on the BBC 2 series Grumpy Old Men and writes a Weekly column in the Guardian.
He lives in Clapham with his wife and two children, where he is also the Chair of Governors at Lambeth Academy. As an active member of his local Party, John agreed to give this exclusive interview to LambethLabour.com.
In the 1980's you fought your own political battles as a Labour Party activist in Tory Battersea. What lessons from that time would you like to pass on to Labour Party members in Lambeth today?
The lesson which I hope readers of Things Can Only Get Better will take away with them is the absolute futility of opposition. Labour Councillors in Lambeth must now feel that, to see things done so badly and incompetently and yet to be powerless, is a galling way of spending your time.
The Liberal and Tory gains in the last election shocked all of us who expected us to be in power at a time of a Labour Government which could help Lambeth improve and instead we got an incompetent Liberal Council that doesn’t really get the blame for things that go wrong in Lambeth. I don’t think people realise that they’ve got a Liberal Council.
The trouble with local elections is that people vote on the popularity of the national Government of the day. So they treat it like a popularity test for Tony Blair or Michael Howard.
So the lesson I’d take away is that there is no point in being politics if you’re not going to get in power. So however much the Government sometimes drives me mad its still a thousand times better than if Michael Howard or Margaret Thatcher were in power. So we should never return to the posturing days of the eighties and let the larger goal slip from our view.
Liberal Democrats often present themselves as the cuddly, fluffy, non-ideological alternative to the other main parties. How would you assess the current image of the Liberal Democrats?
Well they try to be all things to all people and end up standing for not very much indeed. In fact many of the Councillors they put up around the country are people who are active in their community and ask them to stand for the Lib Dems. So these people aren’t coming from any ideological or political point of view. They don’t have any sort of guiding star to drive what they do. The result of it is that you tend to get widely divergent opinions within one party. Quite a lot of are maverick councillors who have no theory or set of core values driving them.
The other problem which I’ve always found with Liberals is that, much as I may dislike what the Tories stand for, at least they are capable of a clean election fight. My experience of fighting liberals is that they are the ones that play the dirtiest, particularly with bogus leaflets and false claims.
Gavin Edwards
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