Why does someone who has been involved in political life for many years give up party political life and start writing about it? In July 2008 John taked to Liz Dolland about writing and his view of the current political scene.

LD: What’s your Evening Post column about?

JH: Anything and everything in the political field, but I try to keep it topical and with some local relevance. The Post have given me an open agenda, but I want to give the reader some insight into what’s behind some of the stories they read in the news pages.

Why did you agree to write for the Post?

I had talked to the Editor, Andy Murrill, some time back about the possibility of doing some writing when I came to the end of my term as a Councillor and it just followed from there. I have written commercially for many years, but there is nothing quite like the discipline of writing for a newspaper to sharpen what you do professionally. Writing 600 words for a daily local tabloid, hopefully in a coherent and amusing way, is far more challenging than turning out 2,000 word essays for the broadsheets.

The letters column carries all sorts of criticism of what you write as well as some people agreeing with you, but you never respond. Don’t you want to have a go at the people who have a go at you?

Why on earth would I want to do that? I don’t read all the letters, nor the website comments when the Post runs the column online, but the point is to provoke a bit of debate – I’m glad when it does. Anyway, the point is not to have an argument, so I let other people do that. People are entitled to their point of view. I’m not about to apologise for any of my views and I don’t expect anybody else to apologise for theirs. Give me someone with the guts to express an opinion over someone who sits back and says nothing any day.

You’ve been quite critical of your own party. Have you had any backlash from your former Labour colleagues as a result?

I’ve respected confidences from my time in public office – it would have been wrong to do otherwise, so most people have been fine. I think they understand that there is no way a local paper would be willing to entertain a partisan column for long – it quite clearly is not that. I was also very clear in my own head that, after a long period where I was constrained in what I said by the Labour whip, being responsible for a policy or promoting party candidates it is nice to be able to express your own views.

And how would you categorise your political views?

I don’t really fit into the party political boxes right now. One of the big divides at present is between libertarian and authoritarian attitudes; it cuts across party lines and affects policy judgements right across the spectrum. It’s also pretty clear to me that, at present, the libertarians are losing – that’s a pity at best and at worst it’s downright dangerous. The left has always had problems articulating its vision of individual freedom and understanding the limited effectiveness of state intervention. The right has always struggled to reconcile its expressed belief in freedom with its desire for imposed social control and a failure to understand where unfettered markets constrain rather than promote freedom. These are philosophical differences, but they permeate to some pretty mundane levels of decision making.

You steered clear of transport for well over a year, despite their always being a lot of material.

I did. I felt that it had to be clear that I was leaving the political arena behind. Had I continued to write and talk about transport in Reading it would have firstly made life impossible for my successor and secondly would have drawn me back into the fray having to defend one position or another.

I did allow myself to comment on the Reading Station funding announcement last June because it was a project I had championed and kept alive when nobody else wanted to know. I also knew that when the RBC Transport Commission reported the Post would almost certainly ask me to write about the outcome, which they did.

But I certainly won’t be commenting on transport in Reading on a regular basis. The thing is I had my shot at it – I’m not saying I will never write or talk about transport again, but it was a great deal of what I did for eleven years in local government so a decent interval was in order – there are lots of things I’m just as interested in that I now get to talk about that I couldn’t before.

Such as?

Well there are the obvious things. I’ve started to write about food, which has always been a real interest of mine. I also enjoy commenting on entertainment - My postgraduate studies were in that field. Television is very important to the lives of a huge section of the polulation.

In the political field. when I first went into local government I was interested in education and wanted to get involved in it, but it tends to be a preserve of teachers and former teachers. I’ve always been interested in the economy – I studied economics as an undergraduate and ended up in business and I’m intrigued by the business of crime, punishment and the law – but current events in the political process itself are enough to keep me in copy most of the time.