Prescott confession adds intrigue

20 April 2008 12:00am

John Prescott's revelation that he was suffering from bulimia when he became Deputy Prime Minister in 1997 adds new intrigue to an already colourful political career.

His time in power is now over - he quit the frontline of politics alongside Tony Blair last year and will retire as an MP at the next election.

But Mr Prescott will probably be remembered more for his out-of-office antics than his political achievements over nearly four decades in Parliament.

His career never really recovered from the revelation in April 2006 that he had an affair with his former diary secretary, Tracey Temple.

Mr Prescott's canoodling reduced his reputation to that of a figure of fun and, more seriously, what the Sunday Times described as "a serial groper" who took advantage of subordinates in his office.

A few weeks later, he was photographed with some of his departmental colleagues playing croquet at his grace-and-favour Dorneywood home on a Thursday afternoon when most people were at work.

The pictures angered many Labour MPs, who regarded croquet as a "toffs' game" and said that he had inflicted yet more damage on the party.

Mr Prescott had survived earlier brushes with controversy - such as when he landed a punch on a member of the public during the 2001 election campaign.

His brawl with the egg-throwing protester was caught on camera, exposing a notoriously short fuse that often saw him make the headlines for the wrong reasons.

In 2003 he flashed a sneaky V-sign behind his back at waiting journalists as he went into a Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street.

During the 1997 general election campaign he said the PR men were "gnats on an elephant's backside".

His scorn for presentational niceties was only too apparent in 1999 when, despite lecturing on car use, he took an official car a few hundred yards down an esplanade within the secure zone at Labour's Bournemouth conference centre from the hotel to the hall.

He said his wife Pauline did not want to mess her hair up, but had to explain that the comment was a joke.

Mr Prescott's plain speaking stems from his working-class background.

He was born in the seaside town of Prestatyn in north Wales. His father John was a railway signalman while his mother Phyllis was a maid.

He failed his 11-plus and left his secondary modern school at 15 for a career as a trainee chef. He later took to the seas as a steward on Cunard passenger liners and became an official of the National Union of Seamen.

He was 18 when he took up boxing on the ships to protect himself when there was trouble with other crew members.

Entering Parliament in 1970, he made a name for himself as a combative opponent feared by ministers.

Immediately after Labour swept to power in 1997 after a miserable 18 years in opposition, Tony Blair made Mr Prescott - already party deputy leader - his number two.

The move was seen as a way to soften any Old Labour backlash against the modernisers such as Peter Mandelson for whom Mr Prescott had an ill-disguised dislike.

The former merchant seaman found it hard to compromise his beliefs as an old Labour stalwart and could scarcely conceal his glee when Mr Mandelson had to resign as Trade and Industry Secretary.

He soon become the new favourite of Labour conferences, a nostalgic reminder to the delegates of Old Labour, to which many of them still felt they belonged.

Occasional performances as Mr Blair's stand-in at the set-piece Commons question time often exposed him to ridicule for his garbled syntax and failure to grasp major issues.

His short fuse made him easy meat for TV interviewers. And he was seen to be at odds with his leader over minimum wages and the scale of taxing the rich within weeks of taking office.

But those who regarded Mr Prescott as little more than a rough-and-tumble politician with no eye for detail soon found they were wrong.

On achieving office, Prescott threw himself whole-heartedly into his job and clinched some complicated and technical negotiations over the railways, the Euro-tunnel and the regions.

He was also widely regarded as an "honest broker" between Old and New Labour and between Mr Blair and then-Chancellor Gordon Brown.

© The Press Association