Politician who played role in Labour comeback

John Prescott was an old-style political bruiser who performed an important position within the New Labour mission.

He scorned what he known as “the gorgeous individuals” – the boys in sensible fits with crimson roses and cell phones who grew to become the brand new face of Labour.

But he was an necessary determine within the marketing campaign to promote modernisation to the occasion and pave the best way for Labour to regain energy after 18 years in opposition with Tony Blair’s historic landslide victory in 1997.

In direction of the top of his political profession, a collection of embarrassments – together with an affair and allegations of ministerial impropriety – threatened to tarnish his salt-of-the-earth picture.

However as deputy prime minister for 10 years and a part of the group that received three successive election victories, his place in Labour historical past is safe.

John Leslie Prescott was born in Prestatyn, then in Flintshire, on 31 Might 1938. His father was a railway signalman and his mom got here from a mining household.

Though his household left Wales when he was 4, he remained happy with his heritage and all the time thought-about himself Welsh.

He grew to become a trainee chef on leaving college at 15 after which labored for eight years as a ship’s steward on passenger liners, turning into lively within the Nationwide Union of Seamen.

In 1962, he went to Ruskin School, Oxford, the place he obtained a diploma in economics and politics, and later to Hull College to review for an economics diploma.

Energetic within the service provider sailors’ strike of 1966, he served as an official with the Nationwide Union of Seamen for 2 years earlier than his election, in 1970, as MP for Hull East, sponsored by the union.

John Prescott grew to become a Labour frontbench spokesman in Might 1979 and joined the shadow cupboard in 1983, gaining a popularity as a pugnacious and educated spokesman on transport.

The identical yr his showman’s instincts noticed him swim two miles down the River Thames to focus on opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s authorities coverage of dumping nuclear waste at sea.

However it was the Labour chief John Smith who lastly gave John Prescott political room to breathe, with a key position in promoting modernisation to the occasion and unions.

It was John Smith who kick-started Labour’s sluggish return to energy, overturning most of the occasion’s most cherished ideas in a drive to make it electable once more.

And John Prescott, along with his sturdy union hyperlinks and no-nonsense strategy, provided very important assist, not least within the abolition of the union block vote that had been Labour coverage for years.

When Tony Blair grew to become chief, following John Smith’s premature demise in 1994, he too recognised the significance of retaining John Prescott on board.

The Hull East MP grew to become deputy chief and later deputy prime minister with vast departmental duty over transport and the setting.

He pledged to create an built-in transport system and mentioned his success could be measured by a discount in individuals needing to make use of a automobile.

This induced him appreciable embarrassment when, on the 1999 Labour convention, he used his ministerial automobile – a Jaguar – for a 200-yard journey again to his resort.

In typical Prescott fashion, he claimed it was so his spouse Pauline’s hair wouldn’t get blown about.

However the politician, who additionally owned a Jaguar himself, was quickly dubbed “two Jags” within the press.

He as soon as described himself because the guard on the Labour practice – able to sluggish it down if it moved off the rails. But his strong working-class credentials added highly effective assist to Tony Blair and the Labour modernisers.

He campaigned passionately in opposition to the Conservative coverage of privatising Britain’s railways and was reported to have been livid when Labour didn’t undertake a coverage of renationalisation when returned to energy.

His coverage of making elected regional assemblies to supervise the brand new regional growth businesses additionally hit the buffers, when, in a referendum in a pilot space in England’s North East, 78% of individuals rejected the thought.

He additionally confronted opposition over his so-called Pathfinder mission, designed to offer hundreds of recent houses.

As a part of the coverage, about 200,000 houses within the North of England have been demolished, which, critics mentioned, may have been renovated at a lot much less price.

His ardour and burly fashion of supply have been fixed options.

He repeatedly described New Labour’s mission as delivering “conventional values in a contemporary setting” – a robust if considerably intangible idea.

Mocked by some for mangling his syntax, he usually nonetheless managed to inject humour into troublesome conditions – reminiscent of when he was criticised for accusing a feminine French minister of being too drained to grasp the intricacies of an setting summit.

“As as to whether I’m accused of being a macho man – moi?” he instructed the Commons. “I have to say the comment leaves me most gutted.”

He hit the headlines in the course of the 2001 common election after he was filmed throwing a punch at a member of the general public who had thrown an egg at him throughout a protest in Rhyl, Flintshire.

John Prescott mentioned he had acted in self-defence and police refused to take any additional motion. Subsequent newspaper polls advised most individuals supported his response.

In later days, John Prescott reportedly needed to act as a peacemaker between Tony Blair and the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, as hypothesis concerning the succession to the management ebbed and flowed.

His personal remark in a newspaper, that the “tectonic plates” within the Labour Social gathering have been shifting, gave rise to solutions of manoeuvring inside the cupboard.

And when he was seen sharing a automobile with Gordon Brown and stopping off at a Scottish oyster bar, the rumours that Tony Blair was about to face down intensified.

Nevertheless, as his profession as an MP neared its finish, the headlines surrounding John Prescott focused on his personal life.

In 2006, he admitted to an affair along with his former secretary Tracey Temple, which led to a raft of lurid tales.

In a cupboard reshuffle quickly after the revelations emerged, John Prescott was stripped of his division, though saved on as deputy prime minister and allowed to retain his wage and grace-and-favour houses.

However, in an additional embarrassment, he felt compelled to surrender his nation pile, Dorneywood, after being pictured on its lawns taking part in croquet along with his employees – a picture at odds along with his down-to-earth popularity.

It was later revealed he had visited the US ranch of businessman Philip Anschutz – whose firm took over the operating of the Millennium Dome and who was bidding to construct Britain’s first super-casino.

Critics mentioned there was a battle of curiosity. John Prescott, who met Mr Anschutz seven occasions, didn’t declare the go to for 11 months. He finally mentioned he had gone as a result of he favored cowboy movies.

The Commons Requirements and Privileges Committee dominated the ministerial code had been damaged as a result of the journey had not been declared instantly.

Shortly after Tony Blair mentioned he could be stepping down as prime minister, John Prescott introduced he would relinquish his position as deputy.

He ended his time in authorities with no ministerial temporary of his personal and was seen by many as a peripheral determine.

To the shock of a lot of his supporters, he accepted a peerage in 2010 regardless of reportedly having as soon as mentioned: “I do not need to be a member of the Home of Lords. I cannot settle for it.”

He defended the choice as a result of it will give him continued affect over environmental coverage and he refused to deal with the crimson benches as an upmarket retirement dwelling, utilizing them as a platform to hold on campaigning.

He continued to serve within the Lords till July of this yr, when he was eliminated for non-attendance – bringing down the curtain on a parliamentary profession of greater than 50 years.

His most sturdy interventions in Lords debates concerned attacking the federal government’s response to the phone-hacking scandal.

For Lord Prescott, the matter was private – his attorneys alleged the Information of the World had positioned him below surveillance, and in 2012 he received a pay out from the paper’s guardian firm, Information Worldwide.

He was again on the stump once more in 2012 when he stood as a candidate in Humberside within the elections for the brand new workplace of police and crime commissioner.

He was mentioned to be disillusioned when he misplaced out to a Conservative opponent on the second spherical of balloting.

John Prescott remained a Labour loyalist at coronary heart.

Whereas in the end distancing himself from Tony Blair’s determination to go to warfare in Iraq, he defended his former boss’ legacy and was equally supportive of the completely different leaders that adopted him.

He additionally suggested the then-Labour chief Ed Miliband within the run as much as the 2015 election.

He was removed from a pure bedfellow of Jeremy Corbyn however insisted the left-wing campaigner – who opposed practically all of what New Labour stood for – had “proved himself”, and urged dissident MPs to assist him.

His son David – who himself stood unsuccessfully for Parliament – was even a part of Jeremy Corbyn’s group.

And talking at Labour’s 2017 convention – the 51st he had attended – he mentioned the occasion was on the trail again to authorities and had a “actually thrilling” future.

In 2019, he suffered a stroke and was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary. However his former Labour colleague, Alan Johnson, mentioned there have been “no indicators of him slowing down in any respect”.

To the very finish, he represented a breed other than a lot of his contemporaries – a Labour MP who had lower his campaigning enamel in a trades union relatively than as a political adviser and who believed political ideas needed to be married to energy.