Alan Johnson’s Please, Mister Postman: the best political testament I have ever read

This second volume of Alan Johnson’s memoirs brings to life a world in which postal workers fed cats while their owners were away and fetched coal for old folk.

By Peter Wilby

(Photo By Alan Johnson leaving No 10 Downing St in 2009, when he was health secretary. Photo: Getty)

Please, Mister Postman: a Memoir
Alan Johnson
Bantam Press, 327pp, £16.99

In a Guardian interview with Mark Lawson in May, Alan Johnson said: “I was a cabinet minister in five different departments and no newspaper ever asked me for my recommended summer holiday reading; no one ever asked me to review a book.” Because he hadn’t been to university, he was, he felt, categorised as an unliterary type.

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Peter Wilby

Peter Wilby was editor of the New Statesman from 1998-2005. Following his conviction in August 2023 for possession of images of child sexual abuse, four articles by him were removed from the New Statesman website. Please see this statement for further details.