The British Labor Party is in mourning: John Prescott, one of its most respected and colorful members, died on Wednesday, November 20, at the age of 86. He had been Tony Blair’s deputy prime minister for ten years (1997-2007), known for his grumpy nature but appreciated for his authenticity, his loyalty to the party and the fact that he had never denied his very popular roots. Loyal to Tony Blair, representative of the party’s right wing, he was its “left wing,” helping the former prime minister maintain unity within his party and win three terms in a row.
Born on 3 May 1938 in Prestatyn, North Wales, John Prescott was the eldest of five children of Bert Prescott, a Labor railway worker, and Phyllis Prescott, a miner’s daughter and professional servant. The family moved several times, to Yorkshire and then to Cheshire: elected member of the Kingston upon Hull East constituency for forty years, John Prescott will always remain faithful to these lands in the north of England, cradle of the first industrial revolution, which still They have not recovered from the closure of mines and mills and remain the poorest in the United Kingdom.
The teenager failed his college entrance exam, left school at age 15 and signed up as a steward for the Cunard Line cruise line. From this aborted school career, John Prescott will have a deep inferiority complex. He remained at sea for eight years, serving passengers, including Conservative Prime Minister Anthony Eden (1955-1957), evidently not suspecting, at the time, that he too would one day have his office at 10 Downing. Street.
Committed to unionism
John Prescott, however, quickly distinguished himself, dedicating himself to unionism and leading the first strikes, without fear of being “blacklisted”, which led to him being excluded from conscription on ships. Trade unionism, however, offered him a way out: in the mid-1960s, thanks to the National Seamen’s Union, he obtained a scholarship to Oxford, where he studied politics and economics.
He continued his studies at the University of Hull, in the northwest of England, where he successfully stood for parliament in 1970, winning his first term as a Labor MP. Then began a long career of backbencher (MP without ministerial portfolio), John Prescott consistently distinguished himself as one of the Labor Party’s most left-wing elected officials.
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