John Prescott: A proud man-of-the-people who mixed just as comfortably with world leaders

I was fortunate to call John Prescott a friend. He was one of the most remarkable people I ever met and his passing is a source of great sadness to me and the wider Labour movement. The scale of the coverage has been fulsome and a mark of the man. There will be many who knew him better but I wanted to add my own reflections on my experiences with John, as well as insights from interviews I conducted with him over the years. 

I first got to know John when he visited Edinburgh some years ago. A few days before his trip, he called to say he wanted to walk around the Fringe Festival. I was concerned. British politics was experiencing one of its most turbulent summers. High-profile politicians were routinely subjected to verbal abuse, and sometimes far worse.  I proposed to arrange security. However, John pointed out that in the past his protection officers were there to protect the public from him rather than the other way around!

In hindsight, my concerns proved unfounded. Strolling around Edinburgh with John, felt like being with a rock star. The overall reaction was enthusiastic bordering on the messianic. I lost count of the number of selfies John starred in, or people assuming boxing poses, or cabbies tooting their horns in recognition. At one point, an Edinburgh flâneur dressed in the ubiquitous colourful trews and tweed jacket – stopped to say, “Mr Prescott, I don’t much like your politics, but I like the cut of your jib”.   

We bought tickets for obscure but wonderful Fringe shows held in tiny venues. Both the audiences and performers were surprised to see the former deputy prime minister in the room, perhaps unaware that he was no stranger to treading the boards himself, in his youth and later in the hit BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey. As a result, he always appreciated the performers’ efforts.  After each show, he would say, “it makes you think,” and then write about them in his newspaper column. 

John was aware of his celebrity, his showmanship and its power. He enjoyed interacting with people, and always used his celebrity in the service of the party. His ease on television, his clear enjoyment of campaigning, and his rumbustious presence within parliament gave rise to the creation of Prezza, as a media and political phenomenon. This persona was amplified by his love of jazz at Ronnie Scott’s club and driving Jaguar cars that earned him the nickname ‘Two Jags’.  

The zenith in the rise of the Prezza persona came in the 2001 General Election. It was a dull campaign until John visited Rhyl. What happened next is well known but it is impossible to think of John or that election without referencing the incident. Having been hit from behind by an egg thrown by a Countryside Alliance protestor, John turned and punched his assailant. It turned out to be the best example of John’s ability to connect with the electorate in more ways than one. 

When John got to speak to the PM shortly afterwards, Blair reputedly asked “Did anyone see?” unaware that Sky television captured the incident and it was playing on loop all over the media. One Labour insider told me that he knew it was okay, when he went into a media room to find people cheering as John landed the punch. Blair himself made light of the incident, famously explaining that, “John is John”.  It is a moment that followed him. Years later John and his wife Pauline were walking through Oxford when he was tapped on the shoulder. It was Bill Clinton, who asked, “John, have you punched anyone today?”   

Most politicians would have had to resign immediately, but John was different. His opinion poll ratings went up after the punch. People related to him and his authenticity. People understood his position, “I was attacked by an individual. In the mêlée that followed, I clearly defended myself”. They would have done the same. He was bemused that sometime later a plaque was put up in Rhyl years later, marking the spot where the incident occurred. As he said, “Now, we're part of history”. 

It became the highlight of the media caricature of John that threatened to overshadow the fact that he was so much more. John was a warm and cheerful man, which contrasted with his reputation as a political bruiser. He was a force of nature – kind, sensitive and deeply loyal – who possessed high levels of emotional intelligence. In meetings, he encouraged open discussion and was cautious about people simply agreeing with him; he often asked pointedly, “What do you really think?”   

John’s world spanned sophisticated policy circles, world leaders, trade unions, parliament and his adopted home of Hull. Any of these factors could intersect at any given moment. I once found myself drinking tea with him in a café in Hull when one of his friends rang. John chatted cheerily on the phone about his friend’s forthcoming trip to Hull. It turned out the friend was [former UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan. For John, this was entirely normal.  

He wasn’t perfect and, like the rest of us, had his challenges. John struggled with deep insecurities, some of which stemmed from failing the 11-plus examination and missing out on a place at grammar school. Later in his life, John disclosed that he had struggled with bulimia through much of his political career, a condition he felt was brought on by stress and overwork. John was particularly sensitive to people looking down on him and snobbery in general – condescending civil servants, patronising sketch writers, and Tory politicians ridiculing his syntax or background.

Chris Carter alongside Prescott during a visit to Edinburgh | David Scott Photography

There was a notable incident when Tory grandee, Sir Nicholas Soames delivered his well-known barb, “Mine's a gin and tonic, Giovanni, and would you ask my friend what he's having?” in reference to John’s years as a waiter.  Despite this, John was fully comfortable navigating Sir Nicholas Soames' world. It is doubtful whether Sir Nicholas Soames would have had quite the same success in John Prescott's natural habitat. John had an enviable breadth of experience, and his talent allowed him to operate in many spheres. This was his superpower. 

Although he may have been the target of jokes within the Westminster bubble, the respect and admiration for him in the country far outweighed this ridicule. He seemed to emerge stronger from criticism, as if it often reflected more about his critics than about him. Among friends, he was self-deprecating and enjoyed laughing at himself. While at Ruskin College, he recalled, “I didn’t realise until three months later that some guy had insulted me by saying I was lumpen proletariat!” He overcame these insecurities, allowing him to speak truth to power. 

An unforgettable example of this is a story he told at a small dinner with friends in Edinburgh. John recounted that after 9/11, Tony Blair asked him to fly to Washington to engage with the White House. He was collected by a US government motorcade at the airport and whisked through the city to the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, into an underground carpark and then chaperoned upstairs by a CIA security detail to the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney.  After some time waiting on his own, the VP appeared on a television screen. “John, thanks for coming. I’m afraid, for security reasons, they’ve moved me to a secure bunker location.  Sorry I can’t be with you.” Before Cheney could continue, John interjected, “Sorry Dick, I’ve flown a long way to be here and I can’t help thinking – if it’s not safe for you to be here, why the hell is it safe for me to be here?”.  

And there it is. The deputy prime minister, talking to the American vice president in the White House during an epoch-defining global crisis and still John was able to interchange in a heartbeat between being the international statesman and the working-class man. He wasn’t the caricature of the working-class man, out of place in high society. He was quite comfortable and capable in most environments and not many people can do that. 

A standard obituary of John will tell you he was born in North Wales, left school in Cheshire at 15 and trained as a chef, before becoming a steward with Cunard Lines. He spent a decade on the cruise ships and was once awarded two bottles of beer by Sir Antony Eden for winning a boxing contest on board. In 1961, he married Pauline and got heavily involved in union activity. He played a role in the 1966 seamen’s strike, denounced at the time by Harold Wilson as a “tight-knit group of politically motivated men”. John’s union activity led to him being blacklisted from working at sea. As he once put it, “I’ve always been pleased to do what I thought was right, even if I paid a price for it, there was a risk factor, going home to Pauline and saying I was blacklisted”. Pauline was always supportive of John’s political career.  

From those early roots, it was the two years he spent studying at Ruskin College that proved to be transformational, with John recalling, “those two great strands of our movement from the industrial and political side, came together at Ruskin”. It was renowned as a tough and demanding course, “it opened my eyes and gave us the bullets to think about how you develop the argument.” He continued his studies with a degree in economics at Hull University. After a short period of working for the National Union of Seamen, in 1970 he was elected as an MP for Kingston upon Hull (East), where he remained for 40 years before joining the House of Lords. 

John’s political contribution is often unfairly overlooked or possibly overshadowed by the imposing persona, Prezza. In John’s first decade in parliament, he campaigned for seaman’s rights, safety in the North Sea, and became part of the Labour delegation to the European Parliament, leading it from 1976-1979. Barbara Castle became an informal mentor. He admired Barbara’s capacity to get things done, “she was never put off by civil servants saying no. She always had a clear idea of what she wanted to do, she was a deliverer, she didn’t tolerate any kind of delay, get on with the job”.  Years later she advised John that he would never become the leader of the party but would have an important role to play in the leadership. These were prophetic words. 

Following Labour’s defeat in 1979, John was part of a generation of talented Labour politicians who spent 18 years in seemingly endless opposition. While reshuffled a number of times, he developed a reputation for putting his Tory opposite numbers under serious pressure, often leading to their resignations. 

In 1992, John Smith became leader of the Labour Party. Prescott held Smith in high esteem. This was evident the following year when he made a decisive intervention in favour of Smith’s controversial One Member Once Vote (OMOV) proposals at the Labour Party conference. His important speech swung the vote in the leader’s favour. John Smith’s death in 1994 was a source of great sorrow with John who reflected, “I adored John Smith, he was a great guy, you knew where you were with him, he didn’t muck about, he was straight to the point and very able. I was very upset when he died. I loved John, a great man.”  In hindsight, Smith’s leadership marked the point where John went from being a rebel to a loyalist, a position he maintained for the rest of his life. 

The leadership contest that followed saw Tony Blair elected as leader while John was elected as his deputy. He viewed the deputy position as providing an important link with the party and the broader Labour movement. They worked closely together with John providing stable and loyal support through opposition and into government, as he put it, “Tony ran a sofa government and I sat on it”.  

John led a large ministry and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. He focused on key policy areas such as transport, housing, regional development, and devolution. These were interests he developed during his long years in opposition, now he was in a position to implement many of his ideas. John’s work was inventive and contrasted with his reputation as a traditionalist. For instance, his Alternative Regional Strategy was years ahead of its time. Arguably, Labour is still trying to catch up with him in this regard.  The recent Brown Report echoes elements of this strategy, which is grounded in a critique of the UK's political economy. Notably, many of the subjects John championed are now leading policy priorities. 

Prescott with Blair and Brown in 2006 | Alamy

While John described himself as a “shouter”, he was a nuanced and creative politician. US Vice President Al Gore praised him for his crucial role in negotiations for the Kyoto Treaty. John’s negotiations strategy involved “knowing what you want, knowing whether you can get it, pushing but also having to take a step backwards sometimes”. It was highly effective, as Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, has noted in his book on the Downing Street years.  

The complex relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown was the fulcrum of the Labour government. The creative tension dominated British politics for over a decade. John admired them both and worked hard to develop the necessary chemistry to make the government work effectively. He regarded Blair as a “great contributor”, “election winner” and “skilled at getting difficult messages over to people”, and characterised Brown as “just brilliant, no one has the intellect that he has, a giant”.   

Occasionally, he cooked dinners for them at his Admiralty House flat to smooth over misunderstandings. He recalled, “these were two giants in our movement, right? It was absolutely critical they were going in the right direction”. John acknowledged that he was in a “unique position” in sustaining the life and effectiveness of the government, “most of my time was keeping things going in the right direction, and we kept going… Gordon on the economy and Blair in communicating to people”. 

Ultimately, John’s political motivation was about improving conditions for working class families. In an era dominated by slick and highly polished politicians, John provided a more relatable form of politics. He was capable, formidable and nuanced but also approachable and fun. 

When John entered the House of Lords in 2010, he maintained a busy work schedule, maintaining his interests in the Council of Europe, regional devolution and worked on climate change policy at his alma mater, Hull University.  

John Prescott was an extraordinary man and the longest serving deputy prime minister in British history. Although often cast as a traditionalist, he played a vital role in a modernising Labour government. He was a proud man-of-the-people who mixed just as comfortably with world leaders. His remarkable trajectory, as he put it in his autobiography, took him from the docks to Downing Street. He was, undoubtedly, one of his generation’s outstanding politicians. Like many, I am pleased to have known John Prescott and will remember him and miss him dearly.  

Chris Carter is a Chair in Strategy and Organisation at the University of Edinburgh's Business School and an adviser to Scottish Labour.