John Prescott
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The Right Honourable John Leslie Prescott, PC (born May 31, 1938) is a British Labour Party politician who is presently Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The son of a railway signalman, Prescott was born in Prestatyn in Wales and brought up in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. He became a steward in the merchant navy, working for Cunard, and was a popular left-wing union activist. He then went to the independent Ruskin College in Oxford and gained a degree in economics and economic history at the University of Hull. He returned to the National Union of Seamen as a full-time official before being elected to the House of Commons as MP for Hull East in 1970.
Prescott held various posts in the shadow cabinet, but his career was secured by an impassioned closing speech in the debate at the Labour Party Conference in 1993 on the introduction of "one member, one vote" elections for the party leadership. The support of an old-school unionist like Prescott helped swing the vote in favour of change. When the party first voted for its leadership under the new system, following the death of John Smith in 1994, Prescott became deputy leader. He became an important figure in Tony Blair's "New Labour" movement, as the chief representative of "old Labour" interests at the Shadow Cabinet table, and a reassuring presence for critics of the project.
With the election of a Labour government in 1997, Prescott was made Deputy Prime Minister and given an impressively large portfolio at the head of the newly created Department for Transport, Environment and the Regions. He pursued an integrated public transport policy, though his reputation as a friend of public transport was hardly helped by his love of large cars, which gained him the nickname "Two Jags".
While attending the Brit Awards in 1998, Chumbawamba vocalist Danbert Nobacon poured a jug of iced water over him, saying "this is for the Liverpool dockers" [1] (http://www.spunk.org/library/music/chumba/sp001737/). Dock workers in Liverpool had been involved in a two-year industrial dispute - a strike that had turned into a lockout - until a few weeks earlier.
In 1999 an official chauffeured car was used to transport Prescott and his wife 300 yards from their hotel to the venue of the Labour Party Conference, where Prescott gave a speech on how to encourage people to switch to public transport. Prescott has on occasion been described as a Champagne socialist.
Prescott's 2001 election campaign was marred by a scuffle with a protester who had thrown an egg at him and the incident was captured by television crews, causing the name "Two Jags" to be replaced by "Two Jabs". After the election his "superministry" was broken up, leaving him with much reduced responsibilities. In the reshuffle that followed the resignation of Stephen Byers in 2002, he regained many of his previous responsibilities for local and regional government, which were moved to a newly-independent Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Bibliography
- Punchlines: A Crash Course in English with John Prescott by Simon Hoggart (Pocket Books, 2003) ISBN 0743483979
- Fighting Talk: Biography of John Prescott by Colin Brown (Simon & Schuster, 1997) ISBN 0684817985
External links
- Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - The Rt Hon John Prescott MP (http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_about/documents/divisionhomepage/037818.hcsp) official site
- 10 Downing Street - John Prescott (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1376.asp) official site
- Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: John Prescott MP (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-4254,00.html)
- TheyWorkForYou.com - John Prescott MP (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/john_prescott/kingston_upon_hull_east)
| Preceded by: New Office | Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions 1997–2001 | Succeeded by: Office Replaced |
| Preceded by: Michael Heseltine | Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1997– | Succeeded by: Current Incumbent |
| Preceded by: Michael Heseltine Until 1997 | First Secretary of State 2005– | Succeeded by: Current incumbent |