Seven memorable moments in the life of Labour’s John Prescott

John Prescott, the Labour Party stalwart who rose from being a steward on a cruise ship to serving as deputy prime minister for a record ten years, has died at the age of 86.

Former prime ministers Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown led tributes to Lord Prescott, one of the most colourful politicians of their era.

Here are seven of his most memorable moments.

Prescott had been a Labour MP since 1970 – and had already made two failed attempts to become the party’s deputy leader, when he strode on to the party conference stage in Brighton in 1993, to deliver the speech of his life.

Labour’s then-leader John Smith was trying to bring in controversial changes to switch to one-member-one vote for selecting parliamentary candidates, in the teeth of strong opposition from many trade unions who saw it as a dilution of their power.

With Smith facing likely defeat and, with it, possibly the end of his leadership, he turned to Prescott – the lifelong trade unionist – to win over waverers.

Despite a later reputation for mangling his words, Prescott’s performance in the conference hall was an impassioned tour de force.

“There is no doubt that this man, our leader, put his head on the block… He has put his head there, now it is time to vote. Give us a little trust,” he said.

He never looked back. When Smith died little more than six months later, Prescott was – at the third attempt – elected deputy Labour leader, and became deputy PM in 1997.

In December 1997, the UK delegation led by the deputy PM played a leading role in agreeing the landmark Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

For the first time, nearly all UN member states committed themselves to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, based on a scientific consensus that human-made CO2 was driving global warming.

The negotiations in Japan ran way past their deadline and there were fears no deal would be struck.

Climate campaigner and then-US Vice-President Al Gore said Prescott “fought like hell” for an agreement and was “an unwavering champion of climate action for decades to come”.

He “possessed an inherent ability to connect with people about the issues that mattered to them – a talent that others spend years studying and cultivating, but that was second nature to him,” Gore added.

Prescott himself said, if he was remembered for just one thing, it would be for his punch during the 2001 general election campaign.

The campaign itself is remembered for little else, as Labour was returned to power with almost as large a Commons majority as four years earlier.

Arriving for a party rally in Rhyl, Denbighshire, a pro-hunting supporter cracked an egg on Prescott’s head.

As the TV cameras continued to roll, the deputy PM responded with a left hook.

A scuffle ensued, but was quickly broken up by bystanders and police.

Blair’s communications chief Alastair Campbell told Prescott he needed to issue a public apology. He refused.

At a press conference the following morning, Blair said it would have been better if it had not happened, while adding: “John is John”.

The incident did not appear to dent either Prescott’s or Labour’s ratings in the polls.

Prescott was given the nickname “two Jags” by the press after it was revealed he used two Jaguar cars – one of them his own and the second a ministerial car.

During the Labour conference in Bournemouth in 1999, his government car took him 250 yards from his hotel to the conference centre.

On stage, as environment and transport secretary, he then urged motorists to cut their carbon emissions by using public transport.

He later claimed he had taken the short journey by car because his wife, Pauline, did not like to have her hair blown about on the seafront.

In 2021, Lord Prescott revealed he had since decided to make his “own small contribution to cutting carbon emissions”.

“I am now zero Jags – selling a car or eating fish and chips with a lower carbon footprint alone won’t save the planet, but as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said: ‘Great acts are made up of small deeds’,” he wrote in The Times.

His son David told the BBC his father had given up cars for good.

When Prescott became deputy PM in 1997, he was also handed a very large portfolio as secretary of state for the new Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

In 2001, this was broken up, with separate departments for environment, food and rural affairs, and for transport, hived off.

One of Prescott’s passions was devolution for England’s regions – to follow Scotland and Wales – though the elected regional assemblies he envisaged would have had fewer powers.

Because of the scale of opposition to his plans, the government held a referendum on them in 2004, in the North-East region where support was thought to be strongest.

The result was a bitter pill for Prescott to swallow, with 78% of the votes cast against devolution. A young Dominic Cummings was the mastermind behind the victorious No campaign, trying out tactics and messages he would later use in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Prescott’s plan for elected regional assemblies was quickly shelved.

Nevertheless, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, a cabinet minister under Gordon Brown, said Prescott was the first person to give the north of England a political profile and paved the way for later devolution to metro mayors.

Prescott briefly appeared in hit TV comedy Gavin & Stacey in 2010.

In the third series of the BBC show, Ruth Jones’s character Nessa Jenkins regularly recalled fictional previous relationships with celebrities including Prescott.

In the final episode, he made a cameo appearance as himself, arriving as a guest at Nessa’s wedding as she prepared to marry fiance Dave Coaches.

He enters the church and congratulates Dave, who replies: “Cheers John, nice to see you.”

Prescott wrote on his blog: “I suppose I have to accept it appears I’ve lost out to a better man.”

According to Nessa on screen, he gave her “full use of one of the Jags”.

For many Labour supporters and activists, there was a sense that Prescott provided an antidote to the spin and slick presentation of New Labour.

Often ridiculed by parliamentary sketch writers for mangling the English language, to supporters he appeared an ordinary man facing the intellectual bullying by people with a better education.

His favourite film was Billy Elliot, the tale of a northern working-class boy who fights poverty and prejudice and poverty to become a leading ballet dancer.

Prescott said he had seen it five times after it first came out in 2000. He also revealed it made him cry.