John Prescott gets poignant last laugh as funeral cortege arrives in two Jags

Prime Ministers past and present paid moving tribute to ‘working class hero’ Lord Prescott at his funeral today.

Our longest ever serving deputy Prime Minister made his final journey in a cortege of two Jags, having the last laugh about his nickname while in power.

Former No 10 director of communications Alastair Campbell played the Welsh National anthem on the bagpipes as the coffin was carried into Hull Minster.

Sir Keir Starmer, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown joined John’s widow Lady Pauline, 82, and their sons Johnathan and David to share treasured memories of a man who helped shape modern Labour.

A congregation of party dignitaries past and present heard how he was famous for punching a ‘voter with a mullet’. But he had spent his life standing up for the ‘common man’, and the people of Hull, where he was MP for almost 40 years.

Blair wanted to celebrate the lives of ‘John the man’, and Pauline, ‘his rock and an amazing person in her own right’. “I will miss him, you will miss him, I hope John is looking down on us all already even while in negotiation with St Peter about accommodation,” he said.

John came from a Welsh village to achieve political greatness, through hard graft and character. “I hoped that he has found the peace he deserved,” added Blair, as he paid tribute to Pauline, John’s wife of 63 years.

She was his ‘rock’ who had survived the roughest of seas because John was ‘so proud to have you by his side’. Gordon Brown said that John ‘wanted the best for everyone’ and was always courteous despite the deceptive image of toughness.

He added: “He went from Cabin steward to the Cabinet. He wanted for everyone what he wanted for his own family, which was the good things in life. For the many, and not just the few.”

He admitted that we will never see his like again, telling the congregation: “A man of the people he certainly was, in a class by himself, a one-off. One of a kind but one of us, in the best sense of the word.

“Unique, remarkable, extraordinary. John Lennon would have called him a working-class hero, not least because he risked appearing on Gavin And Stacey, seen by millions, as Nessa’s rejected suitor.

“John could connect with people, and I don’t just mean that man in Rhyl who dared to hurl an egg at him. The John you saw in Hull and the John you saw at home was the John you saw in Downing Street.

“The reason is he was never afraid to stand up for what he believed, and for the people it was his life’s work to serve.”

With Madeline Bell’s ‘How Much Do I Love You?’ playing, a poignant montage of John’s early life was seen on a giant screen.

It captured his early life in the kitchens of cruise ships, his 1961 marriage to Pauline and trips to the seaside with their sons. He had overcome a series of health problems in his life, including dyslexia, bulimia and diabetes, and never forgot his Welsh roots.

David, 53, said in his eulogy: “He was a man who spent his life overcoming challenges and helping others.

“Prescott was always at your service.” He described his dad as the “bolshy ex-waiter” who became deputy prime minister. He thanked all the carer home staff who looked after him in his final days before his death in November aged 86.

David finished his eulogy with the speech his dad, then candidate to be MP, gave to the East Hull Labour Party in 1968, saying “John always had the last word”.

It ended with the line: “Comrades, I hope I can help.” David ended: “You did dad, you did.” The coffin left to Irving Berlin’s ‘Always’, written by the famous composer for his wife, before family and friends headed to John’s favourite Chinese restaurant for the wake.

Outside the Minster, former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw, said: “He was the subject of condescension all his life by people who thought they were better.”

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, speaker of the House of Commons, added: “He was quite amazing. I saw him once with the bonnet of the Jag up as it needed repair. He said ‘All right comrade.’

“He changed this country for the better.”

Around 200 gathered outside to pay their last respects, including retired fashion shop owner Anita Harman, 82, who went to school with Lady Prescott. “John was a lovely man, what you saw was what you got,” she said.

Brian Lavery, 65, a former journalist turned author, one of those invited to the service, told how they would often fall out in his early days as a reporter in Hull but John would never bear a grudge.

“We started off with daggers drawn, but he was one of a kind, and we became firm friends,” he said. “There was a genuineness about John. He may have had a quick temper but he also had an innate sense of fairness.

“When a former miner was elected for Labour, John went to meet him off the train in London. He only had one suit and he was wearing it. John gave him £5, and told him to open an account in Burton’s to get himself sorted.

“Can you imagine that happening today?”

Lord Prescott once said of ‘the time I thumped that bloke”: “People won’t remember me for my 40 years in parliament.

“Instead, I’ll be remembered for that 40 seconds of my life.”

But what a life.