Poor, proud Prescott will soon be hauled off to the knacker’s yard

The origins of government mishandling of the firefighters’ strike are to be found in the immediate aftermath of the general election in June last year, when Tony Blair failed to sack John Prescott. The Deputy Prime Minister had proved a strikingly incompetent transport secretary during the 1997-2001 Parliament. Commuters are suffering the consequences today. Prescott could easily have been farmed out to the backbenches: his infamous slugging match with a Welsh farm-worker during the election campaign gave an additional excuse.

Some of the Prime Minister’s advisers wanted Prescott out, but in the end Tony Blair lacked the courage to make a clean break. It may well be that Gordon Brown stood up for Prescott, with whom he has formed an alliance. Nevertheless, it was obvious to all concerned that Prescott could not be trusted to handle a proper government department. In the end a berth was found for him at the Cabinet Office. The Blair team felt that he would cause least trouble there, and an eye could be kept on him.

In order to salvage Prescott’s wounded pride, Downing Street preposterously claimed that the Deputy Prime Minister was set to play the central co-ordinating role in Whitehall from his new, lofty perch. Alastair Campbell briefed lobby correspondents the day after the election that Prescott ‘would act with the full authority of the Prime Minister in overseeing the delivery of manifesto pledges as well as dealing with important cross-departmental issues’. (The text of this lobby briefing on the evening of 8 June 2001 can still be found on the Downing Street website: it makes for eye-popping reading.) Warming to his theme, Campbell went on to assert that Prescott would occupy the same role under Blair as Michael Heseltine played for the last two years of John Major’s government. This was sheer bilge, as Campbell must have known better than anyone.