Prescott appeals to old and new
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott yesterday defended Labour record in office in a rip-roaring speech to finish off Labour’s annual party conference in Bournemouth.
Mr Prescott, though lampooned by many in the media, is a favourite among Labour delegates largely because of his up-front, no nonsense approach to politics.
In the speech, Mr Prescott ridiculed the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, attacking in particular the Tories’ beleaguered leader Iain Duncan Smith.
Charles Kennedy was compared to “a kid in a sweet shop not knowing how to pay for any of them.” Mr Kennedy’s party recently won the Brent East byelection, upsetting a large Labour majority.
The shackles of those long Tory years had been prised apart,” Mr Prescott told conference.
But the Tory party remained the “real enemy.”
“Remember this. The party in government, the party in the country, Britain as a whole we achieve more by our common endeavour than we achieve alone.”
Mr Prescott told delegates that Labour’s record in office since 1997 was a welcome mix of Old and New Labour: “Keir Hardie would have rejoiced in the implementation of his minimum wage. Nau Bevan would have dreamed of the kind of investment we are making into his health service.”
The Hull MP, in a bid to downplay the apparent difference of perspective between Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and Mr Blair, enthused over the shared emphasis in both of their the speeches.
These “two great speeches” were “packed full of Labour values and Labour government achievements. That’s the real story,” he said.
But he insisted “these two achieve more by their common endeavour than they do alone.”
“If we fail now. If we tear ourselves apart as we have done in the past. That would truly be a betrayal,” Mr Prescott said.
For the first time in several years the conference finished off proceedings with a rendition of the Red Flag, the anthem of international socialism.
