John Prescott

The Lord Prescott
Official portrait, c. 1997
Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
2 May 1997 – 27 June 2007
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byMichael Heseltine
Succeeded byNick Clegg[a]
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
In office
21 July 1994 – 24 June 2007
LeaderTony Blair
Preceded byMargaret Beckett
Succeeded byHarriet Harman
First Secretary of State
In office
8 June 2001 – 27 June 2007
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byMichael Heseltine[b]
Succeeded byThe Lord Mandelson[c]
Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions
In office
2 May 1997 – 8 June 2001
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Member of the House of Lords
In office
8 July 2010 – 9 July 2024
Life peerage
Member of Parliament
for Kingston upon Hull East
In office
18 June 1970 – 12 April 2010
Preceded byHarry Pursey
Succeeded byKarl Turner
Shadow Secretary of State for Employment
In office
21 October 1993 – 21 July 1994
Leader
Preceded byFrank Dobson
Succeeded byHarriet Harman
In office
26 October 1984 – 13 July 1987
LeaderNeil Kinnock
Preceded byJohn Smith
Succeeded byMichael Meacher
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
In office
23 November 1988 – 21 October 1993
Leader
  • Neil Kinnock
  • John Smith
Preceded byRobert Hughes
Succeeded byFrank Dobson
In office
31 October 1983 – 26 October 1984
LeaderNeil Kinnock
Preceded byAlbert Booth
Succeeded byGwyneth Dunwoody
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy
In office
13 July 1987 – 23 November 1988
LeaderNeil Kinnock
Preceded byStan Orme
Succeeded byTony Blair
Personal details
Born
John Leslie Prescott

(1938-05-31) 31 May 1938 (age 86)
Prestatyn, Wales
Political partyLabour
Spouse
Pauline Tilston
(m. 1961)
Children2
EducationRuskin College
Alma materUniversity of Hull
Signature

John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938), is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull East for 40 years, from 1970 to 2010. He was often seen as the political link to the working class in a Labour Party increasingly led by modernising, middle-class professionals such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, and developed a reputation as a key conciliator in the often fractious relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown.

Born in Prestatyn, Wales, in his youth Prescott failed the eleven-plus entrance exam for grammar school and worked as a ship's steward and trade union activist. He went on to graduate from Ruskin College and the University of Hull. In the 1994 Labour Party leadership election, he stood for both the leadership and deputy leadership, winning election to the latter office. He was appointed deputy prime minister after Labour's victory in the 1997 election, with an expanded brief as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions until 2001, then subsequently as First Secretary of State until 2007. In June 2007, he resigned as deputy prime minister, coinciding with Blair's resignation as prime minister. Following an election within the Labour Party, he was replaced as deputy leader by Harriet Harman.

After retiring as a member of Parliament at the 2010 general election, Prescott was made a life peer and sat in the House of Lords until 2024. He stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate in the 2012 election to be the first police and crime commissioner for Humberside Police. Prescott resigned from the Privy Council in 2013 to protest delays to the introduction of press regulation, of which he had become a proponent. In February 2015, he briefly returned to politics as an adviser to Labour leader Ed Miliband.


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