Death of John Smith: 25th Anniversary
Debate between Ian Murray and Barry Sheerman
Thursday 9th May 2019
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(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Murray
That was a super intervention. I think that that was the measure of the man himself. I am sure that, if we were all a bit more like John Smith, this place would be more pleasurable and our politics would be more as they should be.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend might not know that I used to work for John Smith, and I will be speaking about him in the debate later. John did not suffer fools gladly. If you crossed him in a bad way, if you let him down or if you did not come up to scratch, you got the hard word—and if he gave you the hard word, you deserved it.
Ian Murray
I am sure that my hon. Friend has no direct experience of that and that he has just been told about that approach taken by the former leader of the Labour party.