At a time when most politicians seemed terrified of saying anything vaguely memorable, John Prescott was an unashamed bruiser who gloried in his working-class roots, writes DOMINIC SANDBROOK By DOMINIC SANDBROOK FOR THE DAILY MAIL Published: 09:27 GMT, 21 November 2024 | Updated: 09:28 GMT, 21 November 2024 e-mail View comments In an age of increasingly bland, stage-managed politicians, John Prescott, who has died aged 86, cut an unrepentantly colourful figure. As Tony Blair ’s Deputy Prime Minister for ten years, he had little impact on day-to-day policy. Indeed, most of his supposedly landmark initiatives, such as a joined-up public transport system and devolved governments for England’s regions, were total failures.
To the public, however, Prescott was one of the Blair administration’s most recognisable faces. At a time when most politicians seemed terrified of saying anything vaguely memorable, here was an unashamed bruiser who gloried in his working-class roots, mangled his sentences and, infamously, exchanged punches with an egg-throwing protester in full view of the cameras. Asked how he would like to be remembered, Prescott once replied: ‘As an aggressive bugger.
’ He was certainly that. Yet at a time when many Labour ministers, then and now, seemed to have stepped straight from the Oxbridge seminar room into a ministerial car, Prescott’s remarkable life story struck a powerful chord. And despite all the verbal missteps, sex scandals and corruption allegati.
