Labour firebrand who kept peace for Blair and Brown

Former deputy PM John Prescott was known for that punch but he was a prolier-than-thou crucial part of New Labour

- DENNIS KAVANAGH, JOE MIDDLETON and DAVID MADDOX

A highlight of the lacklustre 2001 general election campaign was the “Prescott punch”. John Prescott, Labour’s deputy prime minister, was incensed by a protester who hit him with an egg. He lashed out at the egg-thrower and the police had to separate the two men. The incident was caught on camera and dominated the news. A mortified Prescott thought that he would have to resign but Tony Blair played the matter down, stating: “John is John.”

Prescott was the keeper of the cloth cap in Tony Blair’s Labour government, perhaps the last overtly working-class Labour politician to hold high ministerial office. With his prolier-thanthou attitude and forceful statement of traditional Labour values, he could touch the hearts of trade union and Labour activists more than any other party figure. At the 1993 party conference the leader, John Smith, was advocating one-member, one-vote in elections for parliamentary candidates and the party leader. The result was in doubt and Smith’s authority, if not his leadership, was on the line. Prescott, in a passionate, meandering, even incoherent speech, roused the enthusiasm of the audience and helped to win the vote.

Transcribing what Prescott was trying to say in the Commons was a test often set for applicants for a job writing Hansard. The torrent of words, often shouted and spoken rapidly, and the syntax were a delight for the sketch writers. Matthew Parris in The Times wrote of an oration in Brighton: “John Prescott went 12 rounds with the English language and left it slumped and bleeding over the ropes.” He found the coverage hurtful and may have suffered from a form of verbal dyslexia.