John Prescott is not a details man, management skills have made him marriage guidance counsellor for Brown, writes John Kampfner
Buffoon. Boxer. Buffer. Good old bloke. John Prescott has been patronised more times than he has picked a fight - and that is quite a few. Britain's deputy prime minister is regarded as the salt of the Labour Party, the antithesis of Tony Blair and his Islington set. But he is far more than that. Behind the scenes, Prescott has kept this government afloat.
The political lifeguard last week also became the human lifeguard. Out visiting old haunts in the North Wales town of Bala, where he had worked as a hotel porter in the 1950s, Prescott saw a holidaymaker capsize from his canoe. Without thinking twice, he called his bodyguards to help him yank the man out of the white-water rapids. "One of my special branch guys ran over and grabbed hold of one side," Prescott told the local newspaper. "I grabbed hold of the other and we pulled him ashore. I mopped the blood from his face, let him rest for a few minutes and we carried him to the first-aid place." An accomplished swimmer, diver and snorkeller, Prescott then embarked on a spot of kayaking of his own. Other politicians have carried out acts of heroics - remember Blair lifting a drowning Dane on to his dinghy in the Seychelles in 1999? Somehow that doesn't sound quite so genuine.
The following day the DPM, as Prescott is known, was off to Cornwall to see the devastation caused by flash floods to the village of Boscastle. He carried off that visit - some don't appreciate dignitaries descending on disaster spots - with his characteristic grim aplomb. August is made for Prescott. It is the one time in the year when he is left alone to run the country, as Blair freeloads villas in Barbados and Italy. This year, unlike last year's frenzy around the Hutton inquiry, the summer has been particularly quiet. When big decisions are required, on matters of war and peace, technology ensures that Blair is able to do business wherever he is. Still there are unforeseen events and there is the basic legwork, and the DPM has been making the most of them.
That is his strength - the libero role in football, the crisis manager. He is not a good details man. His tenure during the first term in charge of the little-lamented super ministry for transport, the environment and local government was a shambles. He was ridiculed as "two Jags" for his love of flashy cars - he was supposed to be pushing public transport. He was lampooned at a party conference in Bournemouth when he demanded to be driven the 200 metres between hotel and conference centre so as not to spoil the coiffure of his wife, Pauline, a former hairdresser. Throughout his time, the only
policy he has pursued with coherence and vigour has been plans to introduce
regional assemblies for parts of England. It is only through his persistence that the first referendum, for the North East, will be held in the autumn.
The DPM's most important function in recent months has been as a marriage
guidance counsellor between the two long-term partners who cannot abide
each other and seemingly cannot live without each other - Blair and Gordon Brown. Last November, Prescott brought the Prime Minister and Chancellor
together at his official apartment for a spot of plain talking. That period had
seen another upsurge in rivalry. Brown had been furious at being left off Labour's National Executive Committee and the plotting had resumed. Suddenly, after Prescott's intervention, it appeared to die away. The word was that Blair and Brown had done a deal, that Blair would stand down immediately after the next election and hand over to the man who felt the job should have been his in 1994. When that supposed agreement began to
unravel, relations plunged again this summer.
In May, Blair appeared to be losing control. He was said to be considering quitting. Prescott was doing little to quell the rumours, using an interview with the Times to admit that ministers were positioning themselves and discussing the era that would follow Blair. "It's true that when plates appear to be moving, everyone positions themselves for it," Prescott famously said. Another gaffe? Another example of the DPM's delicious verbal infelicities? On this occasion, almost certainly not. He meant it.
The following day, reports emerged that Brown and Prescott had held a long
conversation after attending a 10th anniversary memorial service for John Smith. The chat lasted for an hour and a half in the back of a ministerial black Jaguar in the parking lot of a restaurant in Argyll. Dubbed the "Loch Fyne" accord, it fuelled further speculation that Prescott was being seen as the man who would gently urge Blair to stand aside and ensure a peaceful succession.
Yet disloyalty is one thing Prescott cannot be accused of. Unlike other
number twos in Labour party history, he has not coveted the top job. He knows he does not have what it takes to be more than a stand-in. Blair allows his deputy - the only twomembers of the cabinet who have been directly elected to their posts - a longer leash because he does not fear
him. Still, Prescott has a fearsome temper that he is prepared to unleash on anyone who crosses him. He is said to have accused Blair of acting like "f**king Jesus Christ" when he froze cabinet salaries without consulting anyone. The aggression is not just verbal. Who can forget Prescott thumping a heckler who had thrown an egg at him on the campaign
trail in 2001?
Blair knows that without Prescott he probably would not have survived this
long. Time and again, it is Prescott who has rallied angry activists and MPs to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Roy Hattersley, another former leader, who recently described Prescott as the best deputy in Labour history, wrote that "by emphasising, and sometimes inventing, what he called proof of the Prime Minister's belief in basic Labour principles, Prescott has defended him against the natural enemies who now make up a majority of party members".
Only last month, the DPM held another summit with Blair and Brown,
smoothing the way for the appointment of the Prime Minister's favourite son and the Chancellor's least favourite foe, Peter Mandelson, as Britain's European Commisioner. Prescott too has had little time for the spin merchant, showing barely disguised disdain for the public relations excesses of the Blair project. Only half in jest, Prescott once stunned onlookers at the launch of a flood protection scheme on the River Thames by holding up a Chinese mitten crab and calling it "Peter". Still, duty is duty, and he saw it as his responsibility to avoid a row over the Brussels decision.
So will this turn out to be the last summer support act for Prescott? He will be 67 by the time of the next election. Quieter pastures, perhaps in the House of Lords, have long been predicted. It would mark the beginning of the end of a most colourful political career.
He was born in Prestatyn, North Wales, in May, 1938. His mother's family were Wrexham miners and union officials. His father, Bert, was a Liverpool-born railwayman who lost half a leg at Dunkirk.
Relations between father and son have not always been cordial. When John said that he had "a middle-class income", Bert insisted his son was still working class. Prescott has always been class conscious, not least because his first major job, from 17 to 25, was as a steward on the Cunard line.
The aristocratic Conservative MP Nicholas Soames has jovially been known to shout across the Commons floor: "A whisky and soda for me, Giovanni. And a gin and tonic for my friend." Prescott was an organiser for the National Union of Seamen and deemed dangerously left wing. Blacklisted by three shipping lines, he was in the Commons gallery when Harold Wilson attacked the seamen's leaders as being "politically motivated".
By then Prescott's studies at the union-backed Ruskin College in Oxford were giving him a new self-confidence. Still a controversial figure, Prescott was lucky to be selected as the union-sponsored candidate for the safe seat of Hull East where he beat a certain Tory, Norman Lamont, in 1970.
Like many on the erstwhile Left, Prescott saw in Blair an opportunity to make Labour electable again.
This has been an unlikely alliance, but vital to both and to the party. Having survived his many travails over Iraq and public service reform, Blair is likely to return to the fray in more confident mood. But he is by no means out of the woods. Another big bust-up with Brown and the party, another international controversy, and the Prime Minister would be back in danger. One single denunciation from Prescott could blow Blair apart. As Prescott prepares to reassure the faithful at this year's conference, as he
always does, he knows that he could press the nuclear button on his boss at any time. It is a daunting prospect for the most unlikely of modern politicians.
John Kampfner is political editor of the New Statesman and author of Blair's Wars
THE PRESCOTT FILE
Who is he? John Prescott, British deputy prime minister
Why is he in the news? Runs UK government over August and saves kayakers in his spare time
Most appealing characteristic: His inability to string a grammatical sentence together
Least appealing characteristic: Punching people when they cross him
Most likely to say: "I'll meet you outside"
Least likely to say: "Carpaccio of tuna with Parmesan shavings and a drizzle of olive oil, please, waiter"