As a motivational politics speaker, he talks about his humble beginnings, to becoming one of the most influential politicians in the country. His story starts in Prestatyn, a small town in Wales. His first taste of defeat came when he failed the 11-plus entrance examination for grammar school. However, he went on to graduate from Ruskin College and the University of Hull.
John was a Labour politician, and he represented Kingston upon Hull East for 40 years. As a former ship’s steward and trade union activist, he was empowered as the political link to the working class in a Labour Party increasingly led by middle-class professionals.
In the 1994 leadership election, John stood for both Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, winning election to the latter office. He was appointed Deputy Prime Minister after Labour’s victory in the 1997 election, with an expanded brief as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. He developed the reputation as a key conciliator in the often tense relationship between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.
In June 2007 John resigned as Deputy Prime Minister, coinciding with Blair’s resignation as Prime Minister. He retired as an MP in 2010 before entering the House of Lords as a life peer with the title Baron Prescott, of Kingston upon Hull in the County of East Yorkshire. John’s often controversial career in politics provides a multitude of anecdotes for his after dinner and keynote speeches. In his informal and friendly manner, John reminisces over his varied and eventful past, from serving drinks for influential figures in the Merchant Navy to being the right-hand man for the nation’s most prominent political figures.
