No one was quite like John Prescott, says Blair

Sir Tony Blair has paid tribute to his former deputy prime minister and friend John Prescott, saying there was "no one quite like him in British politics".

He told the BBC he was "devastated", after Lord Prescott died aged 86.

The former trade unionist from a working class background served as Sir Tony's deputy for 10 years after Labour’s 1997 election landslide and played a key role in Blair's New Labour rebrand of the party.

Sir Tony said their connection was "not just a political relationship" - and that they developed a "genuine admiration, respect and affection for each other".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the former prime minister said Lord Prescott reached parts of the electorate that he could not, and was "loyal, committed and an enormous help" as deputy prime minister.

Sir Tony recalled Lord Prescott's "extraordinary instinctive sense that something was afoot".

"He often used to come in unannounced into my room in Downing Street, and he would say to me: 'I know you're up to something'," Sir Tony said.

"And of course, he'd always be right."

In a statement announcing his death, Lord Prescott’s wife and two sons said he had been in a care home recently living with Alzheimer’s.

They said he died "surrounded by the love of his family and the jazz music of Marian Montgomery".

Sir Tony said they would talk via videocall in recent times, and Lord Prescott was "still as lively and punchy as ever".

Lord Prescott and his wife, Pauline

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown told BBC Radio 4's Today programme Lord Prescott was a "colossus, a titan of the Labour movement".

He played an invaluable role as peacemaker between Brown and Sir Tony, often being described as their "marriage counsellor" in the media.

Although the marriage counsellor claim was "a little overdone", Brown said, all Lord Prescott wanted to do was "to see people working together".

Sir Keir Starmer said he was deeply saddened to hear of Lord Prescott's death, and called him a "true giant" of the Labour movement.

Speaking in the Commons, the prime minister said Lord Prescott as "a man who fought for working-class ambition because he lived it", adding: "He truly was a one off."

He was a "Labour legend" and "an inspiration", Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said in a statement.

Lord Mandelson, a key architect of New Labour, hailed him as an "all time great" of the party.

The former cabinet minister, who at times clashed with Lord Prescott in government, said he was "the anchor of New Labour" and "the glue that kept us together".

He told the BBC Lord Prescott was a "fighter for working people" and wanted them "to have all the opportunities that he’d had", which made him "an essential part of New Labour".

Lord Prescott with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 2004

In a career that stretched back over half a century, Lord Prescott was first elected as MP for Hull East in 1970 and went on to hold the seat for almost 40 years.

Lord Prescott joined the shadow cabinet in 1983 with responsibility for transport.

Between 1997 and 2007, he was deputy to Sir Tony and received a peerage in 2010.

His retirement from the Commons, and break from frontline politics, did not last long as five years later he was advising Ed Miliband and, in 2017, supporting Jeremy Corbyn.

Lord Prescott ceased to be a member of the House of Lords in July of this year due to non-attendance, having only spoken once in the chamber since suffering a stroke in 2019.

Born in Prestatyn, Wales, Lord Prescott left school at 15 and worked as a steward in the Merchant Navy. He then studied at Ruskin College in Oxford, before entering politics.

"John spent his life trying to improve the lives of others, fighting for social justice and protecting the environment, doing so from his time as a waiter on the cruise liners to becoming Britain’s longest serving deputy prime minister," his family said.

"John dearly loved his home of Hull and representing its people in Parliament for 40 years was his greatest honour."

Lord Prescott married his wife, Pauline, in 1961 and they had two children together - David and Jonathan.

He was nicknamed "two jags" by the press after it emerged he had two Jaguar cars. But in 2021, he revealed he no longer had a motor vehicle, saying "I am now Zero Jags".

He also famously punched a man who threw an egg at him while on the general election campaign trail in Rhyl, North Wales in 2001.

After pictures of the incident appeared in press around the world, a new nickname of "two jabs" was coined for him by journalists.

Lord Prescott said he had acted in self-defence and police refused to take any further action. Subsequent newspaper polls suggested most people supported his reaction.

Commenting at the time, Sir Tony said: "John is John".

Speaking of the incident as he paid tribute on Today, Sir Tony said "that's what he was like".

"There were no rules that he really abided by."

Though a loyal supporter of Sir Tony during his time in office, Lord Prescott was later critical of Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war, telling the BBC that the 2003 invasion of the country "cannot be justified".

To the surprise of many of his supporters, he accepted a peerage in 2010 despite reportedly having once said: "I don't want to be a member of the House of Lords. I will not accept it."

He defended the decision because it would give him continued influence over environmental policy.

But his most robust interventions in Lords debates involved attacking the government's response to the phone-hacking scandal.

For Lord Prescott, the matter was personal - his lawyers alleged the News of the World had placed him under surveillance, and in 2012 he won a pay out from the paper's parent company, News International.