A Journey (58 page)

However, all those days have passed and now John would most likely have taken a job in industry or the public sector as a manager and probably never have gone near a trade union. Instead, he was a major link with a part of Labour’s roots that might be withering, but still had reach and depth in critical parts of the political forest.

Despite failing his eleven-plus he had been to Ruskin College in Oxford (as had Dennis Skinner) and was a lot more intellectually interested and capable than he let on. This latter part of him I also liked. He would start from a position of natural hostility to any New Labour policy, but if the matter were argued properly, he was prepared to listen; and eventually, if he saw merit in the proposal, he was prepared to be persuaded. That doesn’t mean to say that he always went along – frequently he didn’t, and it’s fair to say that some of those around me came to see him as a liability because he was a rallying point for opposition in the drive for reform.

Later, he came to have a relationship with Gordon that was unfortunate. Gordon had backed Margaret strongly and put his machine to work for her, so the initial relationship between him and John was not good, but over time I urged Gordon to make peace with John. ‘Don’t underestimate him,’ I used to say, ‘and if you want to be leader, don’t have him as an enemy. He couldn’t necessarily make someone leader; but he could stop it happening.’

Gordon took the advice and, from my point of view, a good deal too much. It’s not that John was ever personally disloyal – he wasn’t – but Gordon pitched his own position on reform in such a way that it was obviously more simpatico with John’s; so it changed the constellation of forces around me.

John also came to the view that Gordon and I were interchangeable as leaders, with Gordon’s position a little left of my own, but no less attractive for that (possibly more so). He therefore bought the idea that the handover was only fair and right, since Gordon was after all simply a slightly different version of New Labour. In particular, he backed the view that on public services and welfare we had gone far enough in the ‘market’ reforms, whereas I was strongly of the view we hadn’t gone far enough.

Two consequences flowed from this. The first was that on city academies, the introduction of new health service providers and on greater conditionality in welfare, I could frequently count on the support of neither the deputy prime minister nor the Chancellor. Although in the end John was just about persuaded – he waxed eloquent on the failures of the traditional state comprehensive school system in Hull, his constituency – it was a struggle, and it took many painful hours of meeting, discussion and debate.

The second was that by the end, in 2006–7, John agitated strongly for me to go, partly because of his own problems with the media turning savage on him, and partly because he really didn’t think it mattered electorally if I was swapped for Gordon. By then, I had decided I would have to go anyway; but, unsure of whether I was sincere and also partaking of the general assumption that no one would ever voluntarily give up Number 10, he told me in the spring of 2007 that he would resign as deputy prime minister if I didn’t go. He didn’t mean it in a disloyal way, and funnily enough, I didn’t take it that way; he just genuinely believed that it was in the interests of the party that Gordon became leader.

That said, there were countless times over the years where I needed his support and where he gave it with great courage. He knew he was there, to an extent, as the brake on New Labour. He knew therefore that his own credibility rested on his ability to wring changes out of me. He knew that every time he went with me, he sacrificed some of that credibility. But he did so.

Over Clause IV, he moved from a position of doubt to a position of positive advocacy, because in the end he was convinced it was right. Once convinced, he became the staunchest proponent of change. After September 11 – indeed at any moment of crisis on foreign policy – he stuck by me one hundred per cent, giving crucial support at moments when any hint of a split between us would have been deeply corrosive.

So all in all, and given the gigantic stresses and strains imposed on any relationship at the top of the political tree, I have to say I was lucky to have had him as deputy.

As a minister, he could be at points too enthusiastic about the power of government, intervene too readily, mix too much bureaucracy into the policy pie; but he could also be innovative and imaginative. He brought the shipping industry back into the UK by getting the Treasury to change the rules on flags of convenience. He led the negotiations at Kyoto and helped the UK to become the only country in the world to meet its Kyoto target. He played a vital role in housing, chairing the housing policy committee to drive forward the White Paper proposals to improve the planning system. In his ten years, the government secured decent homes for two million more people. He also represented the UK internationally and headed the China Task Force, leading on cross-departmental accords on trade and investment and other areas. His civil servants, once they got used to his moods and saw beneath the rough exterior, liked him and respected him.

His foibles were usually on the endearing end of the spectrum – though some women I know strongly disagree with that assessment. He was definitely old-fashioned, not great at working with a certain type of middle-class woman, and though sound on the policy on gay rights was led more by his head than his heart, if you know what I mean. He was also completely paranoid about smart, young, well-spoken intellectual types. With these, he was like a pig with a truffle. He could smell out condescension, a slight, an air of superiority or a snub at a thousand paces; and once smelt, he would charge after it with quite shocking abandon. Whole swathes of younger advisers, used to the subterranean soil of collegiate debate and temperate exchange of views, would be pursued with manic fervour until forced from their hiding place and sliced into tiny bits. It was made all the more alarming for them by the fact that they would usually be entirely oblivious as to how they had caused such offence.

I confess I was highly amused by this, even though I shouldn’t have been really. Back in the late 1980s when I first came to prominence and got elevated to the Shadow Cabinet, John was just like that with me. Peter and I were part of what he called the ‘beautiful people set’, and that was as big an insult as he was capable of bestowing.

I suppose what made it all bearable, even acceptable, for me at least, was that it was all so transparent. Though John could be extremely cunning, to say he wore his heart on his sleeve would be a severe understatement. He put the whole body map there. At Cabinet, he would occasionally sit like a grumbling volcano ready to erupt at any moment. The proximate cause of the eruption would more often than not be one of the women intervening. Patricia Hewitt was certain to get him moving. She was, in fact, a really good minister and was excellent at the Department of Health, taking truly difficult decisions with immense determination, but at Cabinet, she would usually raise the women’s angle. John would make some slightly off-colour remark if he was in a sour mood. I would then bring her in again, just for the sheer entertainment of watching him finally explode. She would patronise him in the most wonderfully insensitive fashion: ‘Now, John, that’s a very, very good point you’ve just made, and it’s always so worth listening to you.’

He genuinely made me laugh. It was a bit like ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?’ in
The Sound of Music
, though the similarity between John Prescott and Julie Andrews pretty much stops there. Laughing at him or with him was equally good. I always used to tell him that his confrontations with the English language were part of his appeal, but he worried about them, was embarrassed by them, and when it came to things like standing in for PMQs, he was put in genuine dread. Threatening to have a meeting abroad on a Wednesday was the only way I knew of terrorising him; he would palpitate with the horror of the approaching encounter, but he got up and he did it, with a kind of swaggering blunderbuss approach that the House quite liked. The only time it could be a real problem was when he was meeting foreigners and required interpretation, where his manner of speaking defied the talents of most interpreters, who generally needed extensive therapy and counselling after one of these sessions.

He also knew me very well, and knew especially when I was trying to hoodwink him into something or circumvent him or when I was retreating only with a plan to advance again. He was ultra-sensitive to his position not being taking seriously enough. A meeting would be convened and he would come in steaming and puffing to complain vigorously. I developed a specialism in how to handle such situations: the thing was to let him speak and not interrupt or hit back; but rather to absorb and let the anger naturally subside.

Perhaps his most alarming trait was his habit of starting a conversation in the middle – no beginning, no context, no explanation of what the problem was. I remember a time when it looked as if I was going to bring the Lib Dems into the Cabinet – the papers were full of it – and JP was horrified. Some days had passed since the issue was live, so it was not in my mind. But it was in his.

I was working at the Cabinet table, my head full of some policy conundrum or other. In storms John. ‘Where’s fookin’ Menzies?’ he begins. It wasn’t a promising start. He then began searching under the Cabinet table. ‘Come on, where is he?’ I had literally no idea what he was talking about. He raged about the room. I finally cottoned on: Menzies is of course the proper name of the senior Lib Dem person we all knew as Ming Campbell. John had been ruminating on the press reports of Lib Dems coming into the Cabinet, and by some process had decided it was Ming – and had for some reason not known he was called Ming, or maybe thought ‘Ming’ was some private-school nickname and was therefore suspect – and was going to put a stop to it.

I protested in vain that Ming was not joining the Cabinet, and neither was he lurking underneath the Cabinet table. After a few minutes of expletives, John went to leave. As he got to the door, he turned round and said: ‘So do I have your word he’s not coming in the Cabinet?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well, just to let you know,’ he replied, ‘I’m not fookin’ havin’ it.’

He was deeply suspicious of the aristocracy of course, and therefore the royals, but he treated them with respect and decorum nonetheless. For their part, they were half nervous, half intrigued by him. He and Prince Charles corresponded regularly on issues, and as John had responsibility for some rural affairs, it was a relationship that was always a little tricky. John was a vigorous opponent of hunting and there was no persuading him out of that, period.

Shortly after their first meeting, I bumped into Prince Charles. ‘I had a meeting with Mr Prescott recently,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘how did it go?’

‘Fine, fine,’ Prince Charles replied with a somewhat distracted air, ‘except . . .’

‘Yes?’ I said encouragingly, knowing some Johnism was about to emerge.

‘Well,’ he said, looking round to see we were undisturbed, ‘does he ever do that thing with you?’

‘What thing?’ I said.

‘Er, well, when he’s sitting opposite you, he slides down the seat with his legs apart, his crotch pointing a little menacingly, and balances his teacup and saucer on his tummy. It’s very odd. I’ve never seen someone do that before. What do you think it means?’

‘I don’t think it means anything really,’ I said.

‘Hmm. You don’t think it’s a sort of gesture or sign of hostility or class enmity or something?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he does that with me often.’

‘Yes,’ he replied, clearly unconvinced, ‘but—’

‘You mean,’ I interjected, ‘he’s making a working-class point against you, upper class, and me, middle class?’

‘Well, it could be,’ he said.

‘No, I think he just likes drinking his tea that way.’

‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ he said, plainly puzzled and unpersuaded, ‘it’s just I’ve never seen it done before.’

So there you have him. A one-off. Occasionally my bane. More often my support. But genuine, unvarnished and, in the ultimate analysis, true. And in my profession, you can’t say better than that.

The day after John and his punch, we just had to get on with it. I went up to Manchester. There was the usual round of visits to provide background pictures: not too few, so as to provide variety; not too many, so as not to provoke additional unnecessary risk.

After the events of the manifesto launch, it was not surprising that we wanted to keep a grip. But it was frustrating. The trouble was we were in a rhythm. The media wanted a story and the only story was a stumble. We wanted to focus on record and policy, where we thought we were strong and the Tories weak. The result was that the two campaigns never really met; they ran on parallel lines.

From time to time I would call Peter Mandelson and keep him informed of the campaign and get his advice. He was fighting up in Hartlepool, showing his steel and his fortitude in doing so. I thought it might be best for him to stand down, but he was determined not to and he was right. If they were going to pull him down, he wasn’t going without a fight. Later, I wondered about the difference between us. Of course, fighting to stay as prime minister and fighting to stay as an MP are a world apart from each other.

At that point in June 2001, I was fairly clear about myself: I was ready to go before the third election. I was less clear about my motives. I liked to think it was because I could walk away; I was not obsessed with being prime minister; I had a hinterland and another mission in my interest in religion. But I had a nagging doubt that part of it was just cowardice; part of it was wanting to be free of the burden, of the pain it brings, of the sometimes near-intolerable weight of responsibility. Did I want to go for unselfish reasons, or for reasons that were in fact utterly selfish? Was I kidding myself about my desire to keep power? Was I kidding myself about the desire to lay it down? Was I fearful of outstaying my usefulness or, in reality, fearful of the bitterness and rancour of the fight to stay?