KEY POINTS:
John Prescott, the man who deserves some sort of award as Labour's best supporting actor for these past 13 years, bowed out yesterday in characteristic style.
He bashed the Tories, he bashed the press, he said how proud he was to have served in this Labour Government, and he invented an ancient Greek named Dame Osthenes, not known to have existed before.
Whilst the leading man, Tony Blair, still has one more appearance to make on the Commons stage, at next week's Prime Minister's Questions, John Prescott has now taken questions from MPs for the last time, in his capacity as Deputy Prime Minister. His 13 years as Labour's Deputy Leader are up on Sunday, and he will resign from the Government at the same time as the Prime Minister, three days later.
He will be replaced by one of the six candidates competing for his job, whose performance made such a poor impression on the Conservative leader, David Cameron, that a few days ago he suggested that they made Prescott look like "a cross between Ernie Bevin and Demosthenes".
Yesterday the Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, goaded Prescott by suggesting that his true role was as a "marriage guidance counsellor" - a back-handed tribute to the many times the Deputy Prime Minister has stepped in to prevent the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from falling apart.
Prescott cheerfully replied: "My experience is there has always been good agreement between my two colleagues and I'm sure that will continue. It seems that while I was away the Leader of the Opposition had something to say about me too. He described me as a cross between Ernie Bevin and Dame Osthenes."
He added: "When I read classics and Greek mythology at the Ellesmere Port Secondary Modern School we learnt about Narcissus. He died because he could only love his own image. He was all image and no substance."
Hague replied: "I'm sure 'Dame Osthenes' will be very flattered that you have singled her out for praise today."
Prescott also directed some good-humoured insults at the press and broadcast journalists listening in the gallery, which delighted Labour MPs.
And he had a final dig at Cameron, who made a major speech at the start of the week in which he tried to placate the Tory faithful who do not like some of what he has done to reinvent the Tory party. Cameron promised them that he was not abandoning Conservative principles but "applying them in new ways to new challenges".
In the 1990s, when Tony Blair's crusade to create New Labour ruffled Labour activists, Prescott reassured them by promising them "traditional values in a modern setting" - a phrase similar to the one Cameron is now using.
"So now we know, the Leader of the Opposition isn't the heir to Blair, he's a prophet of Prezza," Prescott said.
As well as being Prescott's farewell performance, it was also the first time he had spoken in Parliament since he had to be taken to hospital earlier this month suffering from pneumonia. Prescott, 69, says he will quit the Commons at the next general election.
- INDEPENDENT
