Though it’s a cliche to name somebody an enormous of their occupation, it’s an apt description of Lord John Prescott, who has died on the age of 86. He was an enormous of the Labour motion who performed an important position in supporting Tony Blair in main the social gathering into authorities after 18 years in opposition. As Blair has stated in his personal tribute, “it’s no exaggeration to say the Labour Celebration might by no means have received three consecutive full phrases with out John”.
Prescott was an MP for 40 years and subsequently a member of the Home of Lords for an additional 14. Regardless of suggesting that he had no need for one, he accepted a peerage in 2010 in an effort to proceed contributing on environmental coverage and to make use of the pink benches as a platform for campaigning.
He remained an energetic peer even after struggling a stroke in 2019. Though he spoke in debates much less after this time, he continued to vote in divisions till February final yr. His departure from the Home of Lords in July 2024 delivered to an finish a 54-year profession in parliament.
Alamy
Prescott got here from a working-class household and was a champion for the working lessons inside the Labour motion, particularly after the social gathering modernised within the Nineteen Nineties. Peter Mandelson described him because the glue that held New Labour collectively and ensured the modernised social gathering remained linked to its working-class roots.
His grandfather was a coal miner and his father labored on the railways. Prescott left faculty at 15 and, earlier than his profession in politics, he labored as a ship’s steward on passenger liners. Throughout this time, he turned an energetic and in style member of the Nationwide Union of Seamen.
He later attended Ruskin Faculty in Oxford, which specialised in programs for union officers, and gained a diploma in economics and politics. He went on to check economics and financial historical past on the College of Hull. He remained in Hull for the remainder of his life and it was a metropolis that he cherished dearly.
Champion of local weather and devolution
In 1970, Prescott was elected as MP for Kingston upon Hull East, successful successive elections earlier than stepping down in 2010. He was elected to the place of deputy chief of the Labour social gathering in 1994 and is the social gathering’s longest-serving deputy chief in addition to the UK’s longest-serving deputy prime minister.
His centrality to the New Labour undertaking was obvious as quickly as he was appointed by Blair to guide a “tremendous” division with duties for the setting, transport and the areas.
Prescott could be remembered for punching a member of the general public who threw an egg at him in 2001 and for confessing to an affair together with his diary secretary, however that is to miss his position in some extremely substantive coverage choices.
He helped to dealer the Kyoto Protocol, which set legally binding targets to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions. Certainly, former US vice-president Al Gore paid tribute to him as an “unwavering champion of local weather motion”.
Alamy/John Stillwell
Prescott was additionally a serious proponent of devolution. He oversaw the creation of the straight elected mayor of London, though he was unsuccessful in his makes an attempt to devolve energy to regional assemblies in England. Nonetheless, the debates and discussions now we have to today about devolving energy away from Westminster are cemented within the foundations he constructed within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.
Later within the New Labour years, Prescott was referred to as upon to mediate between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as their relationship started to bitter – actually turning into the glue that held New Labour collectively.
Above all the things else, Prescott was a Labour loyalist. Regardless of distancing himself from Blair over the Iraq battle, he continued to defend New Labour’s and Tony Blair’s legacy. He was additionally supportive of the social gathering leaders who adopted Blair and he suggested Ed Miliband within the run as much as the 2015 election.
Though not with out intervals of controversy, John is remembered for his no-nonsense method and as a fierce debater and campaigner.
