Born in Wales in 1938, Prescott’s father was a railwayman and a Labour councillor and the family once won £1,000 for being declared the ‘most typical family’ of 1951.
Raised mostly in Yorkshire, he would become involved in the union movement during his time working with the Merchant Navy, a time in which he served drinks to Anthony Eden.
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He became a shop steward in the National Union of Seamen, before being elected to parliament as a Labour MP in 1970.
Prescott stood for leader following the death of John Smith in 1994, but lost out to Blair, a man with whom he said he had “fundamental disagreements”.
When the party swept to power in 1997 though he was made deputy PM, as well as being given a wide portfolio that included transport.
Blair’s New Labour may have been a slick, PR-friendly machine modelled on Bill Clinton’s Democrats but Prescott didn’t exactly fit the mould, comparing its army of spin doctors to “gnats on an elephant’s backside”.
Shortly after Labour were elected he quipped: “During the election, I met this chap who said, ‘you’ve got to help me John. I’ve never had sex under a Labour Government’. If you are listening, mate, I hope the first 100 days were good for you.”
He clashed frequently in cabinet with Peter Mandelson, once holding up a crab in a jar and telling reporters its name was Peter.
Prescott’s lifestyle was arguably incongruous with his ‘old Labour’ values, with the MP dubbed ‘two Jags’ for adding a ministerial Jaguar to his personal one.
He would admit he had become middle class, joking: “I no longer keep the coal in the bath. I keep it in the bidet.”
Though perhaps not his most lasting impact, his most famous came with the face of a pro-hunting protestor.
As he attended an election rally in Rhyl in 2001, Prescott was accosted by Craig Evans – who threw an egg at the deputy PM.
A keen boxer in his youth, the MP responded with a smart left jab into the man’s jaw, a scuffle ensuing before the pair were broken apart.
Two years previously Prescott had attended the BRIT Awards, only to be doused in a bucket of icy water by Yorkshire punk group Chumbawumba in solidarity with striking dock workers in Liverpool, who the group felt Labour had failed to support.
They told the NME earlier this year: “He could have resolved that dispute and he refused to even though it was a union that he used to be a part of.
“It was that hypocrisy of people on the left once they get into positions of power and they immediately turn their back on the people who got them there.”
Prescott was also, under various titles, responsible for the Department of Transport and became a bête noire for the popular motoring programme, Top Gear, and in particular host Jeremy Clarkson.
The presenter referred to Prescott as ‘Blofeld himself’ before co-host Richard Hammond shot a likeness of him with a ball bearing gun, described him as “a fat Welshman” and knocked down a cardboard cut-out of him in a braking test.
This culminated in Prescott appearing on Top Gear as the ‘Star In a Reasonably Priced Car’, and engaging in an occasionally spiky interview in which he frequently stood up to remonstrate with the audience.
For what it’s worth he took the Kia Cee’d around the track in one minute 56 seconds which left him between Alice Cooper and Damian Lewis on the final leaderboard.
Eventually though the controversies began to become too much.
In 2003 he was criticised for renting a flat from the RMT – a union of which he was no longer part – for a fifth of its market value, while in 2006 he was forced to pay back close to £4,000 to the public purse after it emerged his council tax was being paid by government funds.
That same year he admitted to having had an affair with his diary secretary, and caused controversy when he visited an Australian billionaire who was looking to build a supercasino in the UK, with Ibrox Park in Govan a potential site.
Prescott announced he would stand down when Blair resigned the premiership, telling the 2006 party conference: “I know in the last year I let myself down, I let you down. So, Conference, I just want to say sorry”.
He was given a life peerage in 2010, and served as an adviser to Labour leader Ed Miliband in 2015.
Underscoring his ‘old Labour’ values, unlike most of Blair’s former cabinet Prescott was supportive of Jeremy Corbyn following his election to the leadership.
Following his death the now independent MP wrote: “John was a huge figure and personality, from his seafaring union days to the highest offices in Government.
“I will be forever grateful for his personal and political support in the 2017 and 2019 elections. His endless warmth and iconic wit were loved on the campaign trail.”
Prescott also expressed remorse in later years for his involvement in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, which he admitted he now considered illegal.
Following the publication of the Chilcot Report he called it “a damning indictment of how the Blair Government handled the war”, concluding “I will live with the decision of going to war and its catastrophic consequences for the rest of my life”.
After his death the current Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called him “a man who fought for working-class ambition because he lived it”, echoing Prescott’s words to the Durham Miner’s Gala in 1999: “Let us never forget our heritage or our roots.”
