Working-class hero?

Adrian

Using terms like "Soviet style political thug" about democratic politicians, no matter how much you personally loath them, is yellow press journalism and frankly, Fraser, you ought to know better than to even give this sort of bilge house room.

"Soviet style" politicians build mass prison camps, throw their opponents in mental hospitals, poison dissidents in foreign countries and in their apogee murder millions through famine and pistol shot.

If the British mainstream right have nothing better to do than echo the 1960s idiot Trots who called all their opponents "fascists" then there is still plenty of good reason for decent people to fear them and their politics. The idiot trots never got near power, now their rightist counter-parts are key lauded by the Cameroons.

norman

I completely agree with Littlejohn. His mansion with so many bedrooms, the plush carpet and the elctrically operated gate sounds like the lord of a manor, and certainly have not seen any real working-class inhabiting the house of such dimensions. he is a selfish thug and a bully who has feathered his nest by class war and slogans.

Austin Barry

With Prescott you got precisely what you saw: a gross, charmless, inarticulate bully-boy with the furrowed-brow intensity of the truly gormless. We now have to live with the image of his vomit-flecked jowls rising from a thousand toilet bowls, but, hey, he provided a few laughs in the otherwise monochromatic world of the NuLabour project.

John

And now he is a has-been loathsome, Soviet-style political thug. Good riddance to very, very bad rubbish.

CS

The fact that New Labour chose Prescott as their working class figleaf speaks volumes about their opinion of the working class.

You could understand their choosing a chippy, inarticulate, thuggish oaf as DPM if he had any obvious skills. The fact that he doesn't suggests that they chose a chippy, inarticulate, thuggish oaf because they imagined that those qualities summed up the working classes.

Tiberius

Adrian: if Prescott had had the opportunity to indulge himself in the old Soviet Union, it is not hard to imagine he would have joined in the queue to "re-educate" the dissidents and kulaks. Even you should be grateful that Britain is still, and hopefully will remain, a democracy to protect us from totalitarianism.

Water

Adrian seems to have summed it upped nicely, "yellow press" seems right. Very ‘little’ to the degree of being myopic, but then the majority of the comments have been of that order of late.

Nicholas

Adrian, I thought the "1960's idiot Trots" grew up to be the "Soviet-style political thugs" who now rule us, albeit beneath the rather thin camouflage of being "democratic politicians"?

Your comment about the Cameroons and "fear of the Tories" cant shows you have not been paying attention and is contradictory to your case by applying the same gross "yellow press" characterisations to them as you accuse Littlejohn of applying to Prescott. It seems that like so many blinkered lefties you believe that only the Left can produce "democratic politicians"?

What a laugh.

Alex R

Fraser,

I'm sure you'll have seen this report in the NotW on expense claims.

I really think this is the one thing, is replicated with MPs, that could derail cameron.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/1105_brussels_exposed_2.shtml

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/1105_brussels_exposed.shtml

Max Kaye

The harsh, personal and ruthless criticism here of John Prescott is without parallel (except for, of course, criticism of Blair and Brown. And Balls... ).

I love it: Payback day has arrived!

John

Oh, do put a sock in it, Adrian, old bean. Your pompous pronouncements impress nobody. Prescott is a thug - not just a political one, but on every level imaginable: human, political, social, marital etc. Trying to impose 'regional assemblies' on England is the work of a Soviet apparatchik. The fact that he miscalculated, and was snubbed by the plebs who he thought would rubber-stamp this Soviet idea from Tractor Central Planning, is not down to his not being one, but to his utter stupidity and incompetence. He has no discernible skills or talents. Heck, he has no redeeming features whatsoever. The fact that such a yob could become DPM is an insult to this country, something this ghastly party of liars and thugs specialises in.

Perry

Working class hero, - my a**e!! (Quite a few expletives deleted!)

Water

The way the second paragraph begins Nicholas shows that you haven’t been paying attention to everything that you’re typing.

Water

Adrian he may call you old bean, but he’s pretty much akin to Mr. Bean himself. You see he thinks we’ve all forgotten but to put things into perspective for you John thinks Gordon Brown is a gangster! You’ll soon learn who to ignore on this website, too many children per square inch these days.

Reed

John Prescott reminds me of a lot of those old union fat cats, retiring to their six-bedroom homes paid for by the people they purport to represent.

George

Littlejohn has me in stitches twice a week, but they seem to adjust web copy sometimes. He did a great story for his Here We Go Looby Loo awards that he does every so often and finished it off with the beautiful line: "She should have been spayed", which had me falling off my chair, but on the web version that became: "They should be neutered". I can see that more people would know the word neutered but spayed just had a better ring to it. Anyway, funny story!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=510199&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322

Ray

Any bets on how long it will be before Prescott's autobiography is selling for £1.99 at The Works?

salieri

Now, John, don't be shy, tell us what you really think about the man.

PS - any idea who actually ghosted his "Memoirs"?

Oscar Miller

o/t - Fraser - can I just register my disappointment in your performance on tonight's Westminster Hour. Full of typical journalistic posturing with your references to Letwin's 'aroma' approach to policy (how out of date is that?) and a really rather despicable deployment of the term 'shock and awe' with reference to Conservative approach to unveiling policy. Really Fraser - a cynic might think you were more interested in crawling to the BBC agenda of 'knock the Tories come what may' than giving any genuine analysis.

Ian C

The amazing fact is that from John Smith's death (1994?) until 2007 Blair, Brown and Prescott dominated British (political) life. Less than a year after two of the three have gone the whole country is in absolutely no doubt that they have been had for suckers. And the press are the main reason that this has happened. They built them up and then destroyed them with not a little help from the culprits themselves, in both directions. He who sups with the devil needs a very long spoon - take note D Cameron. That Prescott could ever have been anything other than an object of derision is and always has been absolutley astounding - and now to read some of these pieces in the papers and on the net everyone seems surprised.

John

"You see he thinks we’ve all forgotten" -

You have no clue what I think.

"but to put things into perspective for you John thinks Gordon Brown is a gangster" -

of course he is.

"You’ll soon learn who" -

The word is 'whom'.

"to ignore on this website, too many children per square inch these days" -

how true. Does your mum know you are playing on her computer?

Lee Jakeman

"I love it: Payback day has arrived!". You took the words right out of my mouth, Max. Enjoy.

Water

We'll what you write seems to be indicative of what you think hence why you have just confirmed that that’s what you think in the line after i.e. that you think Gordon brown is a gangster! Blood infantile remarks! Also if you want to behave like an ignoramus you’ll find that you start sentences with capital letters “how true”, how true indeed.

Water

Also you don’t leave gaps between every little line that you type it’s just bloody idiotic. The writing is very much on the wall and it doesn't look pretty.

Water

"Whom" would infer an element of plurality/objectivity, I was alluding to you and you only. You’re right in one thing though, I have no idea as regards what you think but evidently it’s not that much.

John

An ignoramus who can't spell and can't punctuate (has nobody told you about commas?) and has no grasp of English syntax, and doesn't know that 'infer' is not the same as 'imply', is trying to teach me English? LOL.

Pete Hoskin

Water & John: I've approved your comments so far (they've remained on the right side of decent - just), but won't approve any further personal attacks.

Water

Ok Pete but it says in the dictionary infer meaning to hint; imply; suggest.

salieri

An intriguing if somewhat delphic proposition: '"whom" would infer [sic] an element of plurality/objectivity'.

I wonder what it means. Is it that 'whom', rather than being simply subordinate to a verb - i.e. "whom to ignore" - applies only to more than one person, whether subject or object? If so, a fascinating and original syntactical theory which, presumably, is being advanced (if that is the word) even now in a progressive school somewhere near you.

The reference to 'objectivity' is more obscure. Was it perhaps intended to mean 'the fact of being an object'? If so, the writer's observation is profound since the accusative does indeed involve the "element" of denoting an object, and though I could be wrong I rather thought that was what John was complaining of in the first place.

Incidentally, Speccie readers will have noticed the prevalence of similar howlers (e.g. "whom he understood was going to attend") in recent articles including the Editor's: evidently illiteracy is not the exclusive province of the Left. It is nevertheless John Prescott's major, perhaps sole, claim to immortality.

David Parker

The introduction of Regional Assemblies was not Prescott's idea, though he did try to claim the credit for it, until it proved to be so unpopular.

The Regional Assemblies were created directly in response to the EU Policy of the Regions. Although now keeping a low profile they still exist,though not as directly elected bodies. Nevertheless they still consume substantial amounts of tax payers money,providing lucrative non jobs and perks for some local political jobsworths, but little else.

It would not surprise me to see Prescott worming his way into some lucrative post in the EU, where he would find plenty of kindred spirits.

Ted Tedford

Water, John: Smith and Jones in 'Wilt' (1989):

- Are you inferring that I'm stupid?

- No, I'm *implying* you're stupid. *You're* inferring it.

Or words to that effect.

Tiberius

It's obviously an axiom: whenever the Merchant Seaman is in town, a punch-up ensues.

EyeSee

Remember when the Welsh police took a month to investigate Prescott punching a member of the public, shown on TV? They then decided nothing had happened. A protected thug. Now how Soviet-era is that.