John Prescott a bully - what a shock

Mary Ann Sieghart has an article in The Times in which she recounts what happened in a meeting between herself and John Prescott whilst he was Deputy Prime Minister. It all rings so true and shows John Prescott for what he is, a bully. Here are some extracts, but do read the whole article:

"He launched into a tirade. His face reddened, his finger jabbed...

...

“Right then,” he shouted. “I want you to justify every single word you wrote.”

“Are you quite sure?” I checked. This was going to be embarrassing. So I took a deep breath and began. “Well, you punched a voter and you stuck two fingers up in Downing Street. That shows that you lose your rag too easily - as evidenced today, in fact.”

“AS EVIDENCED TODAY?” he bellowed, his face by now beetroot, his fists clenched.

“Yes, I've been talking perfectly calmly while you've been shouting and jabbing your finger at me. I don't think that's appropriate behaviour in a Deputy Prime Minister.”

...

The final straw was his inability to string a sentence together. “I've not had the fine education you had,” was his justification. “You're just a snob.”

“I'm not,” I retorted. “I have no problem with Alan Johnson or John Reid or David Blunkett. They all come from disadvantaged backgrounds, they didn't go to private schools and they still manage to articulate what they want to say. It's nothing to do with snobbery and nothing to do with your education.” If a man couldn't speak clearly, I said, it was a sign that he couldn't think clearly either.

That was when he finally lost it. “So what you're saying is I'm too thick to be Deputy Prime Minister?” he yelled at me.

His two apparatchiks stiffened. “Well, yes, I guess I am,” I said in a small voice.

...


He, meanwhile, raced off to No 10 to see Blair. I later heard that he said, “I've just had that Mary Ann Sieghart in”, to which Blair replied, “That's nice”. “No it wasn't,” said Prescott, still furious. “She told me I was too thick to be Deputy Prime Minister.” Blair did the worst possible thing and laughed. “Well, she's not the only one who thinks that,” he chuckled."

It is a shame that it has taken this long for what many of us thought was the case to be confirmed. It is also a shame that people such as John Prescott will retire on massive publicly funded pensions whilst the majority of hard working tax-payers in the UK have seen their pension pots diminished by the actions of the Labour government in which he served so dismally.