37 Facts About John Prescott

1. John Prescott was born in Groton, Massachusetts to a well-known Massachusetts Bay Colony family.

2. At the head of this new "super ministry", John Prescott helped broker the Kyoto Protocol, implemented reforms to the British transportation system, and formed regional development councils.

3. Tony Blair won the leadership easily, but John Prescott defeated Beckett for the deputy leadership by 57 to 43 percent.

4. John Prescott displayed many of the traits common to the party's left wing during this period, notably his opposition to British membership in the European Community.

5. John Prescott responded by saying, "Every expense was within the rules of the House of Commons on claiming expenses at the time".

6. John Prescott gained a reputation in the British press for confused speech, mangled syntax and poor grammar.

7. John Prescott was photographed playing croquet at his then "grace and favour" home Dorneywood when Tony Blair was out of the country on a visit to Washington.

8. John Prescott was criticised for maintaining the benefits of Deputy Prime Minister despite losing his department in 2006.

9. On 26 April 2006, John Prescott admitted to having had an affair with his diary secretary, Tracey Temple, between 2002 and 2004.

10. John Prescott repaid the amount, which came to £3,830.52 over nearly nine years.

11. On 12 January 2006, John Prescott apologised after it was revealed that the council tax for the government flat he occupied at Admiralty House was paid for using public money, rather than his private income.

12. John Prescott was reported as saying "there's no such nationality as English".

13. John Prescott was released from hospital on 10 June 2007 to continue his recovery at home.

14. In February 2012 John Prescott announced he would stand for Labour's nomination in the election to be the first Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside Police.

15. On 30 July 2010, John Prescott appeared before the panel at the Chilcot Inquiry concerning the Iraq War.

16. John Prescott engaged in a discussion with host Jeremy Clarkson regarding his time in Government.

17. On 27 February 2011, John Prescott appeared on the BBC's Top Gear as the "Star in the Reasonably Priced Car", where he set a lap time of 1.56.7, the second slowest in a Kia Cee'd.

18. John Prescott chose to make a non-religious solemn affirmation rather than swearing an oath during his introduction in the House of Lords.

19. John Prescott has stated in interviews that he is not religious.

20. John Prescott is a director of Super League rugby league club Hull Kingston Rovers, who are based in his former constituency of Hull East.

21. John Prescott said: "I know in the last year I let myself down, I let you down.

22. John Prescott became an important figure in Tony Blair's "New Labour" movement, as the representative of 'old Labour' interests in the Shadow Cabinet and subsequently around the Cabinet table as Deputy Prime Minister.

23. John Prescott added that Labour were "always better fighting class".

24. On 17 December 2005, John 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.

25. In July 1998, John Prescott, published a transport White Paper stating that the rail industry needed an element of stability and certainty if it was to plan its activities effectively.

26. In 1998, John Prescott was criticised by Transport Minister John Reid for his statement—at the Labour Party conference that year—that the privatised railway was a "national disgrace", despite receiving a standing ovation from the Labour Party audience.

27. John Prescott had vigorously opposed the privatisation of the industry while the Labour Party was in opposition, and disliked the party's 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 saw as meaning that it would never be done.

28. John Prescott had a stormy relationship with the privatisation of the railway industry.

29. John Prescott explained, "Because of the security reasons for one thing and second, my wife doesn't like to have her hair blown about.

30. John 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" for the selection and reselection of Labour Parliamentary candidates that helped swing the vote in favour of this reform.

31. John Prescott became a steward and waiter in the Merchant Navy, thus avoiding National Service, working for Cunard, and was a popular left-wing union activist.

32. John Prescott attended Brinsworth Manor School, where in 1949 he sat but failed the 11-Plus examination to attend Rotherham Grammar School.

33. John Prescott left Wales in 1942 at the age of four and was brought up initially in Brinsworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England.

34. In 2009, John Prescott featured in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history, with roots in Prestatyn and Chirk.

35. John Prescott stood as the Labour candidate in the election to be the first Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside Police, but lost to Conservative Matthew Grove.

36. John Prescott developed a reputation as a key conciliator in the often stormy relationship between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

37. John Prescott was appointed Deputy Prime Minister after Labour's victory in the 1997 election, with an expanded brief as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.