Lord Prescott and Lord Hain when they were in the Cabinet under Sir Tony Blair (Image: Unknown)
“Oh my God!” I thought when John Prescott famously jabbed his left hook at a man who’d thrown an egg at him in the 2001 general election campaign.
“Good for him!” many of my constituents in the former mining communities of Neath, South Wales, retorted.
He had a connection with grass roots life most politicians today would die for.
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I worked with him for ten years as a fellow Labour Cabinet and government minister under Tony Blair. Straight talking, his quips at Cabinet meetings often had us in stiches.
Totally loyal as Deputy Prime Minister to Blair, they were complete opposites. Blair modern, charming, relaxed and erudite, Prescott his complete foil: proud of his working-class roots, blunt and chippy.
He had a short fuse, seemed permanently ready to explode, typically striding down corridors with a suspicious scowl, yet witty and warm when relaxing amongst friends.
A supporter of regional government, he felt strongly English regions like his beloved Yorkshire were being shortchanged and tried to stymie my 2006 Government of Wales legislation which delivered increased power to Wales.
As is often the way in our still class-peppered British society, many underestimated him at their peril. He was always on top of his complex Departmental brief, as well as all his many other national Labour Party and MP responsibilities.
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A powerful speaker, hearing him made complete sense. Trying to decipher the endearingly jumbled syntax afterwards was something else entirely.
He also had hobbies which contrasted with his man-of-the-people earthiness.
Labelled “Two Jags Prescott” and playing croquet at his government country residence Dorneywood, for example.
I often bumped into him and his fellow Formula One fan son Jonathan at Silverstone for the annual British Grand Prix.
After a British-Irish Council meeting in the Isle of Man in 2002, I was leaving for the airport when I spotted him astride a powerful racing motorbike in helmet and padded biker jacket with protective leggings.
He’d told me earlier he’d always wanted to try out the island’s famous TT road circuit – and there he was doing exactly that.