1. John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott was a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007.
76 Facts About John Prescott
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John Prescott was often seen as the political link to the working class in a Labour Party increasingly led by modernising, middle-class professionals such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, and developed a reputation as a key conciliator in the often fractious relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown.
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John Prescott went on to graduate from Ruskin College and the University of Hull.
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John Prescott was appointed deputy prime minister following Labour's victory in the 1997 election, with an expanded brief as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions until 2001, then subsequently as First Secretary of State until 2007.
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John Prescott stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate in the 2012 election to be the first police and crime commissioner for Humberside Police.
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John Prescott resigned from the Privy Council in 2013 in protest against delays to the introduction of press regulation, of which he had become a proponent.
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John Prescott's father was a railway signalman, Justice of the Peace, and Labour councillor.
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John Prescott's family won a competition to find the "most typical British family of 1951".
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John Prescott attended Brinsworth Manor School, where in 1949 he sat but failed the 11-Plus examination to attend Rotherham Grammar School.
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John Prescott became a steward and waiter in the Merchant Navy, working for Cunard, and was a left-wing union activist.
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Apart from serving Eden, who stayed in his cabin much of the time, John Prescott won several boxing contests, at which Eden presented the prizes.
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John Prescott married Pauline "Tilly" Tilston at Upton Church in Chester on 11 November 1961.
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John Prescott then went to Ruskin College, which specialises in courses for union officials, where he gained a diploma in economics and politics in 1965.
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John Prescott returned to the National Union of Seamen as a full-time official before being elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull East in 1970, succeeding Commander Harry Pursey, the retiring Labour MP, and defeating the Conservative challenger Norman Lamont.
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John Prescott had previously attempted to become MP for Southport in 1966, but came in second place, approximately 9,500 votes behind the Conservative candidate.
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John Prescott stood again in the 1992 deputy leadership election, following Hattersley's retirement, but lost to Margaret Beckett.
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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.
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In 1994 Prescott was a candidate in the party leadership election that followed the death of leader John Smith, standing for the positions of both leader and deputy leader.
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Tony Blair won the leadership contest, with John Prescott being elected deputy leader.
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The deputy prime minister stands in when the prime minister is unavailable, most visibly at Prime Minister's Questions, and John Prescott attended various Heads of Government meetings on behalf of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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Since the position of deputy prime minister draws no salary, John Prescott's remuneration was based on his position as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions until 2001.
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The UK played a major role in the successful negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and John Prescott led the UK delegation at the discussions.
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On coming to office, John Prescott pursued an integrated public transport policy.
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John Prescott successfully focused attention on the role of car usage in the bigger environmental picture, and the need for effective public transport alternatives if car volume was to be reduced.
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John Prescott had a stormy relationship with the privatisation of the railway industry.
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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.
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In that speech, John Prescott 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 industry.
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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.
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In February 1999, the regulation of the passenger rail operators fell to Sir Alastair Morton, who John 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.
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In July 1999, the new Rail Regulator appointed by John Prescott was Tom Winsor.
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John Prescott had not intended to make a joke and was distressed when it prompted laughter.
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John Prescott led the campaign to abolish council housing, which ran out of steam when tenants in Birmingham voted to stay with the council in 2002.
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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.
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John Prescott said that the move would create a two-tier educational system that would discriminate against the working class.
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John Prescott added that Labour were "always better fighting class".
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John Prescott, sometimes described as old-school trades unionist, kept in touch with the views of the traditional Labour voters throughout his career.
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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.
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Whilst attending the Brit Awards in 1998, Chumbawamba member Danbert Nobacon poured a jug of iced water over John Prescott, saying, "This is for the Liverpool Dockers".
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John Prescott remained as Deputy Prime Minister, with a seat in the Cabinet, and was given a role as a special envoy to the Far East as well as additional responsibilities chairing cabinet committees.
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The press speculated in July 2006 that, as a consequence of the continuing problems centred on John Prescott, Blair was preparing to replace him as Deputy Prime Minister with David Miliband, whilst possibly retaining John Prescott as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
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John Prescott used his role on the council to make his campaign against slave labour a key issue.
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John Prescott stood down as an MP at the next general election.
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John Prescott was publicly very supportive of Gordon Brown, and called him a "global giant".
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John Prescott was a director of Super League rugby league club Hull Kingston Rovers, who are based in his former constituency of Kingston upon Hull East.
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On 30 July 2010, John Prescott appeared before the panel at the Chilcot Inquiry concerning the Iraq War.
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John Prescott stated that he was doubtful about the legality, intelligence and information about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
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In 2016, after publication of the resultant Chilcot Report, which was critical of the war but remained neutral on its legality, John Prescott declared that the invasion by UK and US forces had been "illegal" and that members of Tony Blair's Cabinet "were given too little paper documentation to make decisions".
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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.
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In March 2013, John Prescott suggested that the Queen, Elizabeth II, should abdicate due to her health.
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On 6 July 2013, John Prescott revealed in a newspaper column that he had resigned from the Privy Council in protest against the delays to the introduction of press regulation.
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In October 2015, John Prescott was presented with the Shechtman International Leadership Award at the Sustainable Industrial Processing Summit 2015 in Antalya, Turkey, for his contributions to sustainable development in politics.
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John Prescott ceased to be a member of the House of Lords on 9 July 2024 under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 because of non-attendance in the preceding session of Parliament.
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In June 2008, John Prescott made a cameo appearance, playing a policeman, in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Robert Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.
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John Prescott engaged in a discussion with host Jeremy Clarkson regarding his time in Government.
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In October and November 2008, John Prescott was the subject of a two-part documentary, John Prescott: the Class System and Me, on BBC Two, looking at the class system in Britain, and asking whether it still exists.
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In 2019, John Prescott hosted the television series Made in Yorkshire for Channel 5, in which he explored the manufacturing of some of Britain's favourite foods.
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John Prescott gained a reputation in the press for confused speech, mangled syntax and poor grammar.
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Originally, John Prescott's nickname was "Prezza", but as various misfortunes befell him the sobriquets became more colourful, leading to "Two Jags", which set the template for later nicknames.
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John Prescott owned one Jaguar, and had the use of another as his official ministerial car.
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In 2003, John Prescott gave up a home that he had rented from the RMT Union in Clapham; he had left the union in June 2002.
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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 from public money, rather than his private income.
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Conservative MP Andrew Robathan tabled questions in the House of Commons over John Prescott's reported entertainment of Temple at Dorneywood, his official residence, which raised questions over the possible misuse of public finances.
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On 7 May 2006, The Sunday Times quoted Linda McDougall, wife of Austin Mitchell, as saying that in 1978 John Prescott had pushed her "quite forcefully" against a wall and put his hand up her skirt as she opened the door for him to a meeting in her own house just after her husband became an MP.
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John Prescott responded by saying, "Every expense was within the rules of the House of Commons on claiming expenses at the time".
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John Prescott was criticised for maintaining the benefits of Deputy Prime Minister despite losing his department in 2006.
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John Prescott was criticised for visiting the American billionaire Phil Anschutz who was bidding for the government licence to build a super casino in the UK, and questioned over his involvement in the business of his son Johnathan Prescott.
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John Prescott was photographed playing croquet at Dorneywood, his then "grace and favour" home, when Tony Blair was out of the country on a visit to Washington.
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John Prescott later said that it had been his staff's idea to play croquet and that contrary to press reports, he had not been Acting Prime Minister when he had played the game.
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John Prescott disclosed in 2002 that he had been diagnosed with diabetes in 1990.
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John Prescott was briefly hospitalised in June 2007, diagnosed with pneumonia, and treated at University College Hospital, London.
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In 2008, John Prescott recounted having suffered from the eating disorder bulimia nervosa, which he believed was brought on by stress, from the 1980s until 2007.
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John Prescott was admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary in June 2019 after a stroke.
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John Prescott subsequently returned to his duties, but spoke in the House of Lords on only one subsequent occasion and last voted in February 2023.
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John Prescott ceased to be a member of the House of Lords in July 2024 due to non-attendance.
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John Prescott died on 20 November 2024, aged 86; his family said that he had been living in a care home with Alzheimer's disease.
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John Prescott's funeral took place in Hull Minster on 30 January 2025.