The Telegraph carries a transcript of John Prescott’s interview (or rather soliloquy) on yesterday’s Today programme. It was apparently intended to be helpful to the Prime Minister.
I shall set it out verbatim, for it is a classic of its kind:
“A bus is a good way to get over to campaigning. You know I’m into Facebooks and all that kind of new technology now. But I’m into face to face. You’ve got to go out in the market square.
“I undressed 450 students yesterday with Ed Miliband and Eddie Izzard and I did 300 last night.
“You have got to talk to our people and when I hear Charles Clarke saying it’s a shame, I have got to say … bit of dayjay vu. They were the same people who crawled out of the woodwork last September, told us they were finished, Gordon should go.
“Clarke actually did apologise later and said he thought he’d got it wrong. Now he’s back at it again. I just say to them, for God’s sake stop complaining and get campaigning.
“We’ve had great difficulties. If you go out in the market square, like in Liverpool, if you know here, they are asking all these questions about allowances, about Gurkhas, quite properly so, and you have got to answer them and in public as well.
“But what I do say, let’s make sure we get the big decisions right. I know you are a bit of a half glass man, half empty not full … Just turn back, you will hear them, when you have had the Americans saying there were signs that we are getting recovery both in America and here. Now, they are the big decisions, John, that and climate.
“Keep your eye on the big decisions and think about some of those. One, about whether it’s boom or bust. If you look at the 10 years, we didn’t have the 10 years of the Tories where you did have boom and bust. John, John, there were millions unemployed, there were millions into poverty. I don’t know what you are talking about.
“If you look at that card we produced in 1967 which I often bring on. I could give it you again and that card said what we would do and we delivered on it, largely due to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. If you look at the actual point of the regulation, Gordon did bring in regulation. He was the man who used to warn us in Cabinet ‘if I can’t get the I-arm-F and the EU and the World Bank to recognise we need to change the finance’. He constantly complained he couldn’t get it done. By God, when we got the collapse they wanted to listen to Gordon Brown. Capitalisation, the building of the stimulus in the economy and now as we heard from President Obama an independence here.
“It’s beginning to turn and that regulatory framework wasn’t tough enough. Have a bit of perspective about it.
“Concentrate on the big decisions, really, that is get the economy right, climate change coming up this year. He’s working hard for that. The big decisions are right but I hear people say ‘I don’t like this smile’. For God’s sake do you go on an aeroplane, talk to the pilot and ask if he’s got a smile or not? Can he land the plane?
“It’s still a bit of a problem, the McBrides and all that, what was his name, I can’t remember now, doing that stupid email. They are still a bit of a problem.
“We have been making problems, as David Blunkett and Charles has said, and Charles, if you are ashamed to stay in the party it is obvious what you should do isn’t it? If you can’t work in it. I am really staggered when I hear a Labour MP that when come through this record and after all Charles has been in Cabinet, David has been in Cabinet. They are in and out. They out themselves. Stop complaining and start campaigning. I asked David to come campaigning and he said he couldn’t because he was going to a football match. Fine. But then you make a speech in Doncaster attacking.
“What I’m saying is, have the debate amongst ourselves, do the issues, have the debate, and David, come and join me on the campaign for God’s sake. Charles, well, he’s not a campaigner.”
John Prescott is standing down at the next General Election. I, for one, will sincerely miss him.
Having received confirmation from the Crown Prosecution Service that he will face no charges over Donorgate, Labour’s former general secretary, Peter Watt, has wasted no time in telling the world what he thinks of Gordon Brown.
To Ruthin, for a particularly lengthy and heavy surgery.
Harriet Harman has just appeared on Today, back-pedalling like fury, and denying absolutely that she cherishes any personal leadership ambitions whatever – even if Alan Johnson throws his hat in the ring. We’ll see.
It’s turning out to be another eventful holiday weekend for Gordon Brown.
