John Prescott remained a Labour loyalist at heart.
While ultimately distancing himself from Tony Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq, he defended his former boss’ legacy and was equally supportive of the different leaders that followed him.
He also advised the then-Labour leader Ed Miliband in the run up to the 2015 election.
He was far from a natural bedfellow of Jeremy Corbyn but insisted the left-wing campaigner – who opposed nearly all of what New Labour stood for – had “proved himself”, and urged dissident MPs to support him.
His son David – who himself stood unsuccessfully for Parliament – was even part of Jeremy Corbyn’s team.
And speaking at Labour’s 2017 conference – the 51st he had attended – he said the party was on the path back to government and had a “really exciting” future.
In 2019, he suffered a stroke and was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary. But his former Labour colleague, Alan Johnson, said there were “no signs of him slowing down at all”.
To the very end, he represented a breed apart from many of his contemporaries – a Labour MP who had cut his campaigning teeth in a trades union rather than as a political adviser and who believed political principles had to be married to power.
