Both left school with few qualifications and worked their way up through the union movement, before entering politics.
And both were able to articulate the authentic instincts of Labour’s base of supporters, in a language, and style, they themselves would often use.
Prescott sometimes had an unconventional way of wooing voters, which on one famous occasion stretched to punching one of them.
And, in the 2020s, as the modern Labour Party sought to jump start its popularity, courting recent Conservative voters, it was Rayner who described some Tory ministers as “a bunch of scum” – remarks she later apologised for.
The old jibe that all politicians look and sound the same could never apply to Prescott or Rayner.
Social class is a key prism through which to reflect on Prescott’s career, politics and life.
For all the talk about how he was the authentic working class grit in the smooth, polished very middle class New Labour, that sense of his class – “bottom class” as he put it – and others was a huge part of how he saw himself, and how he saw others.
If you have a moment today, I recommend listening to this wonderful documentary on BBC Sounds – Prescott At Your Service – which tells the story of a 19-year-old John Prescott working as a waiter on a cruise ship to New Zealand, where the future deputy prime minister would serve the recently resigned former prime minister Anthony Eden.
Decades later, Tony Blair would reflect that Prescott’s own self image was an ever present in his daily interactions in government.
“He could smell out condescension, a slight, an air of superiority or a snub at a thousand paces; and at once smelt, he could charge after it with quite shocking abandon.”
John Prescott was the conduit between Labour’s past and its present.
He was, as well, the glue binding Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, whose pivotal but at times dysfunctional relationship defined the first decade of Labour’s stint in power between 1997 and 2010.
And he illustrated a path to the near pinnacle of power for those whose backgrounds still rarely lead to the top table of British politics.
Source:
www.bbc.com
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