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LAST GOODBYE
Keir Starmer and Tony Blair lead mourners at funeral of former Deputy PM John Prescott who died aged 86
See photos of those in attendance below
TONY Blair, Gordon Brown and Keir Starmer are leading mourners at the funeral of John Prescott.
The service for the former deputy prime minister, who died in November aged 86, is being held at Hull Minster, in his former constituency.
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Lord Prescott's coffin was carried into the minster as former Downing Street director of communications Alastair Campbell played the Welsh national anthem on the bagpipes.
Senior figures from the past and current Labour governments are attending, including Prime Minister Sir Keir, who praised Lord Prescott for his "tenacity and vision" ahead of the service on Thursday.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and former prime minister Gordon Brown were also at the minster before 11.30am, with the service due to start from 12pm.
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair arrived with his wife Cherie and was followed into the church by Lord Mandelson.
Sir Keir and Mr Brown walked into the building with their wives and began chatting to many of the guests who had assembled in the church.
Former home secretary Baroness Jacqui Smith, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle were among the first to arrive, followed by Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner walked towards the minster with Mr Campbell.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper arrived with her husband Ed Balls.
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More than 300 family members, friends and colleagues have been invited to the service.
Lord Prescott, who served as deputy prime minister under Sir Tony Blair between 1997 and 2007, died on November 20 last year in a nursing home where he had been living with Alzheimer's.
The service, hosted by the Rev Canon Dominic Black, will include singing from the Choral-Hull children's choir, made up from pupils across the city.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations for Alzheimer's Research UK.
Lord Prescott had been living in a care home following a stroke in 2019 and passed away "peacefully" surrounded by family.
Fiery John Prescott was proud to be a blunt-speaking Northerner – he was last authentic voice of Britain’s working class
JOHN Prescott, a former Cunard Line waiter who rose to be deputy Prime Minister under Tony Blair, was the last authentic voice of the working classes to serve in high office.
The MP for Hull, known as The Mouth of The Humber, spoke for the trade unions in a New Labour government which finally broke their stranglehold over economic and industrial policy.
As deputy leader of the Labour Party, he also refereed the infamous
“TeeBee-GeeBees” flare-ups between Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown during their battle for the Labour crown.
Burly “Prezza”, a prize-winning boxer, was a bruiser both inside and outside Parliament.
In the 2001 election campaign, he was hit in the face by an egg thrown by a protestor.
Prescott, a man with a hair-trigger temper, landed a powerful left jab before police intervened.
“There was only one punch,” he explained afterwards. “Tony Blair rang and asked what happened.
“I said: ‘You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did’.”
Lord Prescott, who has died aged 86, was proud of his working-class roots and as a blunt-speaking Northerner.
But he was born in Prestatyn and regarded himself as a Welshman.
In later life he admitted carrying a chip on his shoulder after his brother Ray was rewarded with a new bike for passing his 11-plus to a grammar school.
John failed and got nothing.
What he saw as a gross injustice fuelled a lifelong resentment towards elitism - even within his own party - and an insecurity which drove him close to the top of the political greasy pole.
He was deeply hurt that in 10 years as deputy PM, he and his glamorous wife, Pauline - an Elizabeth Taylor lookalike - were never invited to dinner at Chequers, the PM’s official home.
Prescott blamed Blair’s “snobbish” wife, Cherie.
“We never got close to the Blairs,” he said. “It just didn't happen. We were not their set. Certainly we were not her set.”
The former ship’s steward was mocked by toffee-nosed Tories such as
Nicholas Soames who greeted him in the Commons, crying: “Mine’s a gin-and-tonic, Giovanni.”
And he was teased for mangling the English language, once complaining "the sceptre of unemployment stalking the north-east".
As Environment supremo, he boasted: “The Green Belt is a Labour
achievement - and we mean to build on it.”
But the son of a railway signaller was no fool.
He studied economics and politics at Ruskin College, Oxford, and scored a BSc degree at Hull University.
He enjoyed his success, living in a turreted mock-Tudor mansion and playing croquet on the lawns of his official home, Dorneywood.
An avowed socialist, he earned his “Two Jags” nickname by driving an XJ6 Jaguar and using a chauffeur-driven XJ8 for government business.
“My roots, my background, the way I act is working class, but it would by hypocritical to say I’m anything other than middle class now,” he admitted.
John Prescott’s remarkable political career crumbled dramatically in 2006 when his two-year love affair with bubbly secretary Tracey Temple was exposed after her jealous lover read her diary.
Tracey, who sold her story to a Sunday newspaper for £250,000, described “groping and kissing” in the Deputy PM’s office and his opulent grace-and-favour Admiralty office flat.
"We were very lucky we were never caught - as we never shut the door,” noted Tracey, played by Maxine Peake in “Confessions of a Diary Secretary".
"When I went into his office for diary meetings, if I was wearing a skirt he would slide his hand up my leg, under it.
“He used to stroke my back. And, yes, I did give him sex in the office a
couple of times.
“I knew what we were doing was risky but we both got carried away.
"Seven civil servants worked right outside his office. Of course there were moments when I thought, I shouldn't be doing this.
"I also thought how surprised and shocked people would be if this ever got out."
Prezza resigned as deputy Labour leader telling the 2006 party conference: “I know I let myself down. I let you down.
"So conference, I apologise."
Nine years later he returned to front-line politics as unpaid adviser to Ed Miliband on climate change.
Prescott suffered a stroke while campaigning for Mr Corbyn at the 2019 election and retired from politics.
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