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NBCJun 25
UK: Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott Passes at 86
Above: Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is interviewed on the second day of the Labour Party conference on Sept. 26, 2016 in Liverpool, England Image copyright: Leon Neal/Staff/Getty Images News via Getty Images
The Facts
Former Deputy Prime Minister Lord John Prescott has died aged 86, with his family writing in a thread on X that he passed "peacefully" on Wednesday "surrounded by the love of his family and the jazz music of Marian Montgomery."
Born in Wales in 1938 before moving near Rotherham at the age of four, Prescott left school at age 15 with no qualifications, studied economics at Hull University — and became a trade union activist, leading a national seamen's strike in 1966.
The Spin
Left narrative
For many, Prescott was and forever will be a shining beacon of the Labour Party's core values. Having left school without qualifications before becoming a union activist, a local advocate for Hull, and a working-class counterweight to Tony Blair's air of elitism, there are not many left within Labour who can truly claim to be of the people in a way Prescott so unapologetically was. A man who acted as a bridge between both Blair and Brown as well as Old and New Labour, his passing is a true loss for British politics.
Right narrative
Prescott's death has led to inevitable comparisons between himself and his modern equivalent, Angela Rayner. Yet this reflection on the past has only made it ever clearer that the current Labour ticket remains but a cheap imitation of the New Labour titans of the past. While Rayner is no Prescott, she is certainly helped by the fact that Starmer is even less so like Blair — only time will tell if she can achieve what her mentor couldn't quite do and lead the country as a left-wing Labour Prime Minister.