John Prescott, has died aged 86 after a battle with Alzheimer’s. In a statement, his family said he died peacefully on Wednesday, while listening to jazz music at his care home
John Prescott punches protester who threw egg at him in Rhyl
John Prescott gave a cheeky response to his then-boss Tony Blair after he was pictured famously throwing a punch at a protester who threw an egg at him.
The former deputy prime minister, who died this morning aged 86 at the care home he’d been living in, was called by a shocked Blair shortly after footage of him targeting a socking left jab at Craig Evans was posted around the world.
He later revealed his tongue-in-cheek reply when Blair asked him what had happened.
“There was only one punch,” Prescott explained at the time. “Tony Blair rang and asked what happened.
“I said: ‘You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did’.”
The incident happened during the 2001 election campaign when Craig lobbed an egg at Prescott in a protest over farming issues. Before the police could intervene, the deputy PM spun around and immediately punched the protester.
Speaking today from his home, dad-of-two Craig, 53, paid tribute to the legendary politician and said he had no regrets over what had happened between them.
“A friend called me this morning to say he died, he had Alzheimers I believe, you wouldn’t wish that on anyone, my thoughts are with his family. The guy has died,” he told the Mirror.
He added: “Alzheimer’s is a terrible thing… my grandad died of Alzheimers and you wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It robs the person and it robs the family of the person.”
Over the years, Craig has been asked to appear on TV shows to speak about the incident, which hit headlines across the UK, but has always turned down the opportunities.
Asked for his thoughts on it now he said: “It’s too long ago, it is what it is, it happened at the time. I’m well known [for it].
“I don’t regret it. I still believe now what I did back then.”
John, a political heavyweight who was proud of his working-class roots and had a reputation for blunt speaking, was instrumental in holding the New Labour experiment together. He brokered arguments between Blair and his chancellor Gordon Brown, who went on to become Labour prime minister when Blair stepped back from power.
He had been living with Alzheimer’s for a few years and in 2019 moved to a care home after a stroke. Following his health conditions, John also left the Lords in July as he could no longer attend or vote – he had been ennobled in 2010.
In 2008, at the age of 68, Prescott was praised for bravely revealing his struggles with the eating disorder bulimia, in which sufferers binge-eat before inducing vomiting, taking laxatives or diuretics, fasting or exercising to excess, in a process called purging.
He had started his disordered eating during the 1980s, during a stressful time serving in Labour’s shadow cabinet, and admitted he’d felt a “twerp” turning up at a specialist clinic and being the only man in the waiting room.
In his memoirs, Prescott admitted feeling ashamed and embarrassed as a man suffering from an eating disorder and wrote of his fear people would think he was “too unstable” to be a minister if he’d come out publicly earlier.
