I did not have a deprived upbringing. I had an ordinary upbringing, in a twilight suburbia where postwar council estates nestled alongside small, detached red brick Victorian villas. I learned my politics there. Not in great northern cities, the Welsh valleys or crumbling urban estates. Not in places with great political traditions and dramatic folklore. I learned my politics in the small town of Woking in Surrey, where most people were neither privileged nor deprived but nearly everybody was struggling to get by, where university was out of the question for most and where nearly everyone went to secondary modern schools.

I knew that I was Labour, but I had little idea why. My parents, both teachers, were Christians, and I drew my values from them: compassion; support for the underdog; a sense that all people are born with equal intrinsic worth. But I was torn: I wanted to protect the poor yet I wanted talent to soar; I wanted fairness yet I wanted aspiration to be uncapped. I was not calm about all this; I was obsessed.

I could not make sense of politics, but I knew that politics was at the heart of my life. I remember joining the Labour party in the spring of 1965, when I was 15, and going to my first party meeting in the small, detached modern home of Terry Molloy in Highclere Gardens in Knaphill. But my party was to betray the people who lived here: ordinary people with suburban dreams who worked hard to improve their homes and their lives; to get gradually better cars, washing machines and televisions; to go on holiday in Spain rather than Bournemouth. These people wanted sensible, moderate policies which conformed to their daily lives and understanding. Labour had failed to understand that the old working class was becoming a new middle class: aspiring, consuming, choosing what was best for themselves and their families. They had outgrown crude collectivism and left it behind in the supermarket car park. I knew this because they were my life.

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