John Prescott
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| The Rt Hon. John Prescott | |
| Born | 31 May 1938 Prestatyn, Wales |
|---|---|
John Leslie Prescott MP (born May 31, 1938) is a British Labour Party politician, Deputy Prime Minister, First Secretary of State and Member of Parliament for the north east constituency of Hull East. He became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party after coming second in the Labour leadership election in 1994 and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister after Labour's landslide victory in the 1997 General Election.
A former ship's steward and trade union activist,<ref>John Leslie Prescott. Retrieved on 2006-05-02.Two Shags has two inches. Retrieved on 2006-07-07.</ref> he is presented as the political link to the "working class" in a "New" Labour party led by modernising middle class university-educated professionals, despite his own university education.
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[edit] Early life
The son of a railway signalman (and Labour councillor) and grandson of a miner, Prescott was born in Prestatyn and brought up initially in Brinsworth in South Yorkshire, England. He attended Brinsworth Primary School, where he sat but failed the Eleven Plus examination in 1948. His family moved to Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, where he attended the Grange Secondary Modern School. He became a steward and waiter 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.
[edit] Parliament
He returned to the National Union of Seamen as a full-time official before being elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hull East in 1970, succeeding Commander Harry Pursey, the retiring Labour MP. The defeated Conservative challenger was Norman Lamont. Previously, he had attempted to become MP for Southport in 1966, but came in second place, approximately 11,000 votes behind the Conservative candidate. From 1974 to 1979, he concurrently served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Leader of the Labour Group, when its members were nominated by the national Parliaments.
Prescott held various posts in Labour's 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 this reform. Prescott became deputy leader with the first leadership vote under the new system following the death of John Smith in 1994. He became an important figure in Tony Blair's "New Labour" movement, as the representative of "old Labour" interests in the Shadow Cabinet.
[edit] Deputy Prime Minister
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. In July 2001, an Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was created to deal with the areas under his responsibility. <REF>The office of Deputy Prime Minister (pdf). House of Commons. Retrieved on 2006-07-18.</ref> This new office was originally a part of the larger Cabinet Office, but became a department in its own right in May 2002 when it absorbed some of the resposibilities from the former Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
It should be noted that in the United Kingdom, the title "Deputy Prime Minister" has rarely been used and confers no specific powers (in which it is similar to the pre-20th century usage of Prime Minister). In particular, the Deputy Prime Minister draws no salary; for Prescott, salary was based on his position as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions until 2001. Upon losing that role he was given the title First Secretary of State and a much smaller department called the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister often stands in when the Prime Minister is unavailable, the most common example being at Prime Minister's Questions (usually when the Prime Minister is out of the country), although Prescott has attended various Heads of Government meetings on behalf of Tony Blair.<ref>BILATERAL MEETING OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND WITH THE DEPTUY PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN (HTML). The Chancellery of the Prime Minister (Poland). Retrieved on 2006-06-09.</ref>
It is generally accepted that the second most powerful member of the present British government is the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, not John Prescott.
[edit] Environment
The UK played a major role in the successful negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and Prescott lead for the country during the discussions.<ref>Paul Brown. "Hopes for Kyoto rise after Japan and EU ratify treaty", Guardian Unlimited, June 1 2002.</ref><ref>Stephen Habberley. "Prescott's highs and lows", Guardian Unlimited, June 1 2006.</ref>
[edit] Transport
Prescott pursued an integrated public transport policy, with little evident success. On 6 June 1997 he said: "I will have failed if in five years time there are not... far fewer journeys by car. It's a tall order but I urge you to hold me to it." Subsequently there have been attempts to deny that he ever said this but the statement was confirmed by Prescott in a House of Commons debate.<ref>ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS, RELATING TO TRANSPORT The Secretary of State was asked. Hansard (1998-10-20).</ref>
By June 2002, car traffic was up by 7%. <ref>Friends of the Earth - Transport policy fails the Prescott test</ref>
Prescott had a stormy relationship with the privatised railway industry in Great Britain. He had vigorously opposed the privatisation of the industry whilst the Labour Party was in opposition, and disliked its policy, established in 1996 just before the flotation of Railtrack on the London Stock Exchange, of committing to renationalise the industry only when resources allowed, which he (correctly) saw as meaning that it would never be done. Reluctantly, he supported the alternative policy, worked out by then shadow transport secretary Clare Short MP, that the industry should be subjected to closer regulation by the to-be-created Strategic Rail Authority (in the case of the passenger train operators) and the Rail Regulator (in the case of the monopoly and dominant elements in the industry, principally Railtrack). The policy was spelled out in some detail in the Labour Party's statement in the June 1996 prospectus for the sale of Railtrack shares, and was widely regarded as having depressed the price of the shares.
In 1998, Prescott was criticised by investors in the railway for his statement - at the Labour Party conference that year - that the privatised railway was a "national disgrace". The companies felt that they had had some considerable successes in cutting costs and generating new revenues in the short time since their transfer to private sector hands, and that the criticisms were premature and unfair.
In that speech, Prescott also announced that he would be taking a far tougher line with the companies, and to that end he would be having a "spring clean of the regulators". This meant that the incumbent Director of Passenger Rail Franchising - John O'Brien - and the Rail Regulator John Swift QC - both appointed by the previous Conservative government, would have to make way for Prescott appointees. And so it was. In February 1999, the regulation of the passenger rail operators fell to Sir Alastair Morton, whom Prescott announced would be appointed as chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, which would take over from the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising whose office would be wound up. In July 1999, the new Rail Regulator appointed by Prescott was Tom Winsor. Although the two men frequently disagreed - sometimes publicly - they shared Prescott's view that the railway industry needed a considerable shake-up in its institutional, operational, engineering and economic matrix if it was to attract and retain private investment, and enable the companies within it to become strong, competent and successful. They spelled out their views in that respect in a joint appearance before the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport on 23 June 1999, under the sceptical eye of its chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody MP. The problem was that the two newcomers did not agree on what the matrix reforms should be and how they should be implemented. Prescott occasionally had to act as peacemaker between them, but he was never entirely successful.
Morton left office early, in October 2001. Winsor continued until the end of his five-year term in July 2004.
[edit] Regional development
Prescott supported regional government in England. Early in his term, he introduced regional assemblies (consisting of delegates from local authorities) to oversee the work of new Regional Development Agencies in the regions of England. Following Labour's second election victory, he pressed for the introduction of elected regional assemblies, which would have seen about 20 members elected under a similar electoral system to that used for the London Assembly. However, due to opposition, the government was forced to hold regional referenda on the change. The first three were intended to be in the North-East, North-West and Yorkshire and Humberside. The North-East referendum in 2004 was first (where support was felt to be strongest) but resulted in an overwhelming vote of 78% against. The plan for elected regional assemblies failed.
Prescott's conduct of his Department was criticised in relation to housing development. The rising number of households (especially in the south-east) means that new houses need to be built. Given that there are insufficient "brownfield" (developed) sites, Prescott determined that some greenfield (undeveloped) sites must be used for them, including some in the Green Belt. Prescott made a gaffe in January 1998 when he declared in a radio interview that "The green belt is a Labour achievement; and we intend to build upon it.".<ref>"Planning", Hansard, 3 Feb 1999 : Column 996.</ref>
In the north of England, Prescott approved the demolition of some 200,000 homes that are judged to be in "failing areas" as part of his Pathfinder regeneration scheme. In some cases these areas are abandoned, in others the communities are resisting. In the South East (the most affluent area of the UK), Prescott is widely criticised for building high rise flats on sites that were formerly houses, back gardens, and green areas. There is also critique of the underlying assumptions of the proposals.<ref>Charles Clover. "Has John Prescott got his sums right?", Daily Telegraph, May 16 2005.</ref>
As part of his remit over planning issues Prescott introduced the Local Authorities (Code of Conduct) Order 2001. This is a statutory instrument which was not voted on by Parliament but which forbids local councillors from having a say in planning issues in which they are deemed to have a "prejudicial interest". This has been criticised for undermining local democracy and severely curtailing freedom of speech, by effectively preventing councillors from representing the views of the communities which elected them.<ref>Daily Telegraph 26.2.06, "Christopher Booker's notebook".</ref>
[edit] Rebellion over education reforms
On 17 December 2005, Prescott made public his disapproval of Tony Blair's plans to give state schools the right to govern their finances and admission policies and to increase the number of city academies.<ref>Francis Elliot. "Prescott hits out over 'great danger' from Blair's school reforms", The Independent, December 17 2005.</ref> Prescott, who failed to gain a place at a grammar school because he failed the Eleven Plus entrance examination, said that the move would create a two-tier educational system that would discriminate against the working class. In an interview that was the first that Prescott has made against Blair since his election as leader in 1994, he also said that the spirit of "fighting class" should be brought back to the Labour Party, an ideal that sits uneasily amongst many middle-class MPs in his parliamentary party.<ref>Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite. "Class war: Prescott attacks Blair's education reforms and Cameron's 'Eton Mafia'", Daily Telegraph, December 18 2005.</ref>
[edit] Demotion and abolition of department
In a Cabinet reshuffle on 5 May 2006, Prescott was stripped of his department following lurid revelations about his private life (see below) and poor performance by Labour in UK local elections. He remained as deputy PM, with a seat in the Cabinet, and was given a role as special envoy to the Far East <ref name="keepspoils">Isabel Oakeshott. "Prescott the predator keeps his spoils", Sunday Times, May 7 2006.</ref>. His department was effectively transferred to Ruth Kelly as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
[edit] Succession
The British press speculated on 9 July 2006 that as a consequence of the continuing problems centred on Prescott, Blair is preparing to replace him as Deputy Prime Minister with David Milliband MP, whilst possibly retaining Prescott as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.<ref>"No. 10 lines up Miliband for Prescott job", Sunday Times, July 9 2006.</ref>
[edit] Announcement of retirement
On 28 September 2006, at the Labour Party conference in Manchester, John Prescott apologised for the bad press he had caused for the party during the previous year. He said: "I know in the last year I let myself down, I let you down. So Conference, I just want to say sorry."
He confirmed he would stand down as Labour's deputy leader when Tony Blair leaves Downing Street.<ref>"Prescott tells Labour: I'm sorry", BBC News, September 28 2006.</ref>
[edit] Controversies
Prescott has been involved in a number of controversies and incidents that have caused public concern and widespread media interest.
The incidents in the subsidiary article are:
- Brit Awards, 1998; a jug of iced water poured over him in a protest
- Cars and the environment; fined for speeding
- Fighting with a protester; farmer threw an egg at him and Prescott responded with a punch
- Council tax; repays council tax on Admiralty House
- Sexual infidelities and harassment allegations; including his affair with Tracey Temple
- Benefits controversy; forced to give up houses after losing his department
- Croquet controversy; photographed playing croquet at Dorneywood when acting Prime Minister
- Phil Anschutz affair; super casino planning row
- Absent during airport terrorism plot?; Reid in charge?
- Comments about Bush Administration; Prescott denies saying the Bush administration had been "crap" on the Middle East road map
- Johnathan Prescott involvement; any links with the business of Johnathan Prescott
[edit] Trivia
[edit] Comments about other politicians
John Prescott has been accused of making tactless remarks or gestures about his fellow politicians, including fellow members of the Labour Party.
He was faced with a crab in a jar, and compared it to Peter Mandelson, saying "You know what his name is? He's called Peter."<ref>"Caught on tape: Infamous gaffes", BBC, September 19, 2006.</ref>
[edit] Public speaking
Prescott has gained a reputation in the British press for confused speech, mangled syntax and grammar. The Guardian columnist Simon Hoggart once commented: "Every time Prescott opens his mouth, it's like someone has flipped open his head and stuck in an egg whisk." <ref>"John Prescott: An Upstanding Member of UK PLC", The Friday Project, 28 April 2006.</ref>
An oft-quoted but unverified story in Jeremy Paxman's The Political Animal is that, before being accepted as transcribers to Hansard, applicants must listen to one of Prescott's speeches and write down what he was trying to say.
One of many examples occurred at the 2006 Labour spring conference where the BBC reported "Fans of Prescottese were not disappointed as the deputy prime minister began by harking back to the bad old days when Labour had 'single finger majorities'".<ref>"Two Jabs hits 'chameleon' Cameron", BBC News, 13 February 2006.</ref>
[edit] Sobriquets
It has been a game played by the media to attach various nicknames to John Prescott. Whilst the way has been lead by the red tops, even the normally staid and sober Independent has got in on the act. Originally, Prescott's nickname was simply "Prezza".<ref>"Prezza's big gamble on Dome billionaire", The Times, 09 July 2006.</ref>
As various misfortunes befell Prescott the soubriquets became more colourful leading to "Two Jags"<ref>"'Two Jags' Prescott in parking row", The BBC, 27 July 2001.</ref> (Prescott owns one Jaguar, and has the use of another as his official ministerial car), "Two Jabs" <ref>"Prescott punches protester", BBC News, 16 May 2001.</ref> (referring to his retaliation against a protester farmer in 2001), "Two Shags"<ref>"Two Shags has two inches", The Sun, April 2006.</ref> (in reference to his extra-marital affairs), "Two Shacks"<ref>"Two Shacks", Guardian Unlimited, 1 June 2006.</ref> (referring to his former country house) and by The Independent, "No Jobs"<ref>"Another sacked minister holds on to his residence", Independent Online, 24 May 2006.</ref> (after he lost his department in a cabinet reshuffle, following exposure of his affair).
[edit] Bibliography
- Punchlines: A Crash Course in English with John Prescott by Simon Hoggart (Pocket Books, 2003) ISBN 0-7434-8397-9
- Fighting Talk: Biography of John Prescott by Colin Brown (Simon & Schuster, 1997) ISBN 0-684-81798-5
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- 10 Downing Street - John Prescott official site
- BBC Profile
- Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: John Prescott MP
- TheyWorkForYou.com - John Prescott MP
- Mr Prescott and his gaffes
[edit] References
<references/>
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Harry Pursey | Member for Hull East 1970 – present | Incumbent |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by: Margaret Beckett | Deputy Leader of the Labour Party 1994 – present | Incumbent |
| Preceded by: New Office | Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions 1997–2001 | Succeeded by: Office Abolished |
| Preceded by: Michael Heseltine | Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1997–present | Incumbent |
| Preceded by: Michael Heseltine Until 1997 | First Secretary of State 2001–present | Incumbent |
fr:John Prescott ja:ジョン・プレスコット no:John Prescott
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