Britain’s longest serving Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott – whose death has sadly been announced at the age of 86 – was a most unusual and a most colourful communicator.
Often – but not always – John Prescott’s communication proved to be a bizarrely effective …despite him being frequently mocked for his unconventional choices in word ordering.
This involved a mutilation of the normal word order rules of the English language.
Mangling standard English syntax is not generally recommended – but it did help make John Prescott’s views stand out with remarkable colour.
I wouldn’t routinely put him forward as a first choice communications role model to people in the political or business world.
But there are odd elements about his communication performances to be admired.
This proudly upwardly mobile working class lad who left school at 15 to go to sea as a steward on cruise ships – before becoming a highly successful and always a fascinating representative of the people of Hull – had a distinctive way of getting across his message.
The Prescott style of communicating was often quite emotional – and sometimes rather abrasive.
But it was also known for being touchingly authentic.
John Prescott was dyslexic and was known for struggling with the arrangement of words and phrases.
Amongst the classic examples of this was when he declared: “The Green Belt is a Labour achievement – and we intend to build on it.”
One of the Prescott strengths was to openly acknowledge his challenge with syntax.
Once in the House of Commons he mocked himself – and his political opponents – with the line: “’Syntax! Syntax? I thought that was a new Tory tax!”
Commendably John Prescott’s style of communicating involved saying what he thought in robust terms.
He was able to do this while (mostly) keeping his sense of humour…though he could be self-critical for sometimes scowling too much.
Even when John Prescott put together the strangest combinations of words, listeners typically got a genuine and high-impact sense of what he thought about whatever topic it was that he was addressing.
If you want to know how Mr Prescott – a boxer in his younger days – felt when hit with an egg thrown at him by an election campaign protestor in Wales, the following photo gives a clue.
It depicts John Prescott’s most infamous non-verbal interaction.
Before you watch the video of the incident below, I must stress that Michael Dodd Communications does not endorse the throwing of punches…
Or the throwing of eggs!
Michael Dodd Communications always fosters effective communication and points out that – despite the honesty of John Prescott’s response to the messy arrival of his egg – there are non-violent, and legally safer ways, of conveying how you feel.
Alas these ways aren’t quite as memorable as this video has proved to be!
When asked afterwards by Prime Minister, Tony Blair, what on earth was going on, John Prescott responded: “I was just carrying out your orders. You told us to connect with the electorate. So I did!”
Understandably struggling to defend his deputy’s violent action, Mr Blair could only proclaim that “John is John.”
It wasn’t exactly a classic great answer.
If you and/or your team need to learn to the secrets of how to “Give Great Answers To Tough Questions”, click here:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/give-great-answers-to-tough-questions/
John Prescott In Action – An Australian Eye Witness Account
When I met John Prescott – in the upstairs room of a London Pub – I can happily assure you that no punches or eggs were thrown.
It was a jovial occasion where – after the formalities – a certain amount of amber fluid was admittedly consumed.
At the time Mr Prescott was fairly new to the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party – serving as the supportive number two to the rising star Opposition Leader, Tony Blair , of self-declared “New Labour”.
As the older – and some would say the more traditional half of the new Blair-Prescott political double-act – John Prescott had come along to address an offshore meeting of members of the Australian Republican Movement.
These were mainly visiting Australians (some staying long enough to vote in UK elections) with a few British members too.
I was there to cover the event for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
This involved witnessing the unique John Prescott style of last-minute – in fact, almost last-second – speech preparation.
To this day, I have never seen a politician prepare for a speech in such an open and public way.
Members of the republican movement were gathered in the pub room hired for the occasion when Mr Prescott cheerily arrived a little early.
With characteristic open friendliness, he made no secret of the fact that he had not fully prepared his is speech for the occasion.
He cheerily greeting everyone ahead of his speech-making moment in the limelight, then sat down with pen and paper to work on his remarks.
John Prescott told the waiting audience members that he was planning to refer to the time when the British Cabinet Secretary had made a high-profile appearance in a courtroom in Sydney.
The Cabinet Secretary had been sent to Australia to be a key witness for what proved to be a failed book-banning quest by the Government of Margaret Thatcher.
This had been in 1986 when Mrs Thatcher was (unsuccessfully) seeking to prevent the worldwide publication of the controversial book, “Spycatcher”.
The Prime Minister was concerned that it would reveal various embarrassing details about the historic activities of the British secret service.
Spycatcher had been banned in England, and Mrs Thatcher was seeking to stop it being published elsewhere – including Australia.
The book was the memoir of a former MI5 officer , the disgruntled Peter Wright.
The Cabinet Secretary of the time was deployed as part of the Thatcher ‘Stop Spycatcher’ mission.
The Cabinet Secretary was questioned in court by a sharp young lawyer – and future Australian Prime Minister – Malcolm Turnbull.
At the time of this Prescott London pub speech, Mr Turnbull had gone on to become the Chair of the Australian Republican Movement.
The “Turnbull versus The British Cabinet Secretary” joust was therefore a well-chosen topic for John Prescott to reference at a gathering of Australians who felt their country should have their own head of state – in line with their catch cry of wanting “a resident for president”.
Such republicans felt – and still feel – that having a home-grown Australian head of state was preferable to have a British head of state who lives in Buckingham Palace and is represented in Canberra by a Governor General.
They were particularly aware that, as the representative of the Queen or King, the Australian Governor General has the power to remove a government – as happened in 1975 with the dismissal of the administration of Gough Whitlam.
So, pen in hand, John Prescott told everyone that he wanted to reference the famous bit of the Spychatcher Down Under court case when the British Cabinet Secretary denied Malcolm Turnbull’s suggestion that he had travelled to Australia to lie about a vital matter before the court.
Under close questioning from Malcolm Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary insisted that – as opposed to lying – he was merely “being economical with the truth”.
This contentious choice of words made headlines in Australia and in Britain.
The problem for John Prescott was that, just ahead of his speech, he realised that he couldn’t remember name of the Cabinet Secretary.
So in his disarmingly straight-forward way, he asked those gathering to hear his speech if they could remind him.
The wisdom of the room obliged.
The name was “Sir Robert Armstrong” – as this was before this lofty civil servant had been elevated to the position of “Lord Armstrong of Ilminster” to sit in the House of Lords.
Mr Prescott duly wrote down the name and – when called upon to deliver his speech, he correctly referenced Sir Robert for the crowd.
As political and foreign correspondent who has witnessed a large number of MPs speeches in various countries (for better and for worse), this remains the only time when I’ve witnessed a politician ask for and receive prior assistance from the audience to help with his immediate speech content.
It was typical of the Prescott way of doing things that he was unabashed about signalling to the audience beforehand that he hadn’t completed his required speech preparation before arriving at the venue.
This certainly underlined John Prescott’s image as an unusual politician without inflated delusions of greatness.
What you saw was what you got and – in that pub on that night – he came across as all the more lovable as a result.
I must emphasise that, despite this charming Prescott characteristic, I don’t recommend to any presenter that you should be researching your speech in front of the audience that’s about to hear it.
If you or your team members need help in planning or delivering important presentations, you can check out what’s available at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/presenting-with-confidence-impact-and-pizzazz/
Meanwhile, in tribute to John Prescott, here’s a collection of his best known moments.
Do be warned that the infamous egg-throwing/punch-throwing incident reappears, but there is much more – including even some mangled English which still kind of gets across the Prescott point!
And at a time when world leaders are struggling to find consensus over the way ahead to tackle climate change, it’s worth remembering that John Prescott used his communication and political skills to start getting the more developed and less developed countries to work together at the time of the Kyoto climate change conference in Japan.
Here’s John Prescott looking back on his international efforts on combatting climate change which began while he was serving as Britain’s Secretary of State for the Environment.
So what’s the ultimate communication lesson from the colourful life of John Prescott?
It’s that however humble your background – and however shaky your grasp of correct word ordering – you can still develop yourself to be an authentic, memorable and effective communicator.
You can remain true to yourself, make your point and make your mark!