Lord Prezza gives up class war: But I'm only taking a peerage to turn Pauline into a Lady, he says



John Prescott completed his transformation from working class bruiser to establishment pillar yesterday when he accepted a peerage - to placate his wife's fury over his affair with a secretary.

The former Deputy Prime Minister always said he would never accept a seat in the House of Lords and has been a vocal opponent of 'flunkery and titles'.

Less than two years ago he said: 'I don't want to be a member of the House of Lords. I will not accept it.' But he caved in after his long-suffering wife made a series of public demands that she become 'Lady Pauline'.



Honour: John Prescott - pictured with his wife, Pauline - is set to be made a peer

Asked recently if she would like to be 'Lady P', Mrs Prescott said: 'My God, Yes!'. Labour sources said Mr Prescott felt he owed his wife after the public humiliation she endured when his cavorting with diary secretary Tracey Temple was exposed in 2006.

It means the man who began his career as a cruise ship steward, but acquired a taste for the high life in government - including playing croquet - will now be able to add ermine to his wardrobe.

Seeking to justify his change of heart, Mr Prescott wrote on his blog yesterday: 'I welcome the opportunity to continue to campaign in Parliament for jobs, social justice and the environment as well as to hold this Con-Lib Government to account.'



Long-suffering: Gordon Brown's aide Sue Nye (in white jacket) looks on as he meets Gillian Duffy in Rochdale. He blamed the run-in on Nye when he got in his car but has still handed her a peerage

But a Labour source said: 'It's not really John's scene. Pauline is a different matter.'

Mr Prescott's was the most notable name on Gordon Brown's dissolution honours list, as gongs were handed to a long line of cronies, has-beens and Labour toadies.

Former ministers John Reid, Des Browne - a longstanding Brown ally - Hilary Armstrong, Angela Smith, Jim Knight, Bev Hughes, Helen Liddell and Paul Boateng will all go to the Lords.

But the list was most notable for the rewards handed to key Brown allies. The former prime minister handed a peerage to his longest-serving aide Sue Nye, the woman he sought to blame for the 'Bigotgate' disaster during the election.

'I don't want to be a member of the House of Lords. I will not accept it.'

John Prescott, August 2008



She introduced him to Rochdale grandmother Gillian Duffy, the woman he later insulted.

Wilf Stevenson, boss of the Smith Institute, a Left-wing think tank whose main role was to help Mr Brown secure the Labour leadership and a former special adviser, Maeve Sherlock, also go to the upper house.

Labour's union paymasters also got honours, with peerages for former TUC boss John Monks and Margaret Wheeler, a director at health union Unison.

But Mr Brown denied peerages to former Cabinet ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt - both of whom would normally have been a shoo-in - who called for him to quit earlier this year.

Others coming into the House of Lords include former children's television presenter Floella Benjamin, for the Liberal Democrats, and former First Minister of Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley.

Downing Street stressed that the 56 appointments are only enough to replace those who have died since the last election.



Lord a leaping: John Prescott

Hypocrite? Yes, but he's in good Labour company

By Richard Waghorne

As recently as two years ago John Prescott was unequivocal on the matter. 'I don't want to be a member of the House of Lords,' he said. 'I will not accept it.'

In accepting nonetheless, the future Lord Prescott joins a long line of Labour hypocrites who railed consistently against the upper house until they themselves were invited to don ermine.

Among the more egregious was Lord Hattersley of Sparkbrook. As Deputy Labour Party leader, the then Roy Hattersley stated plainly that 'the House of Lords should be replaced by an elected assembly'. The objection has not stopped him from sitting unelected in the chamber for the last 13 years.

Neil Kinnock as Labour Party leader was even more emphatic. In 2003 he dismissed speculation of his elevation, insisting: 'I'm not even sure I would go into a reformed House of Lords'.

The following year he accepted a peerage to the unreformed house, where he sits with his ennobled wife. It is estimated that House of Lord's allowances, combined with their pensions, salaries, and expenses from Westminster and Brussels, have brought £12million into the Kinnock household - all accepted reluctantly no doubt.

Despite arguing vehemently that the Lords should be cut to a maximum of 200 peers, James Callaghan, ennobled as Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, consented to be raised to the peerage when membership stood at about 1,200.

His former chancellor Denis Healey made the same journey after a career in which he frequently mocked the chamber as the 'House of the Living Dead'.

Callaghan's predecessor as Labour leader, Harold Wilson, seriously considered abolishing the chamber outright. Instead, on resigning in 1976 he issued his infamous 'Lavender List' of heavily criticised crony appointments and later took ermine himself as Lord Wilson of Rievaulx.

Mr Prescott, for his part, once described the hereditary peers he will soon be sitting alongside as 'an offence against democracy'.

Nor have Labour leaders publicly committed to radical reform of the upper house hesitated to utilise their powers of patronage.



Despite pledging in the 1997 Labour manifesto to review the 'system of life peerages' to make the chamber 'more democratic' Tony Blair packed the Lords with Labour peers, including several who had fought the 1983 election on the pledge to 'take action to abolish the undemocratic House of Lords as quickly as possible'.

Not all Labour luminaries have done so. Tony Benn not only refuses to contemplate a peerage but gave one up in order to enter the House of Commons in 1950.



The late Michael Foot similarly declined, stating on his retirement from the House of Commons in 1992, 'I think the House of Lords ought to be abolished and I don't think the best way for me to abolish it is to go there myself'.

Ermine for the donors

Former Tory leader Michael Howard is to become a peer along with a number of wealthy donors and party grandees.

Mr Howard, who employed David Cameron as a special adviser while he was Home Secretary in 1993, is the most high-profile Conservative to be elevated to the House of Lords.

Mr Cameron has risked accusations of poor judgment by also ennobling a number of party veterans who faced controversy over their expenses.

Among the 'sinners' are Sir Michael Spicer, who claimed for a chandelier to be hung in his manor house and claimed £5,650 in nine months for gardening bills.

Former Tory cabinet minister John Gummer has also been elevated. He was ordered to repay £29,000 after claiming for excessive gardening bills, including removing moles from his country estate.

Also on the honours list are two major Conservative party donors - Ugandan-born Indian tycoon Dolar Popat and Next chief executive Simon Wolfson. Mr Popat has donated more than £200,000 to the Tories in the last six years and Mr Wolfson £238,000.

Other Tory appointments include party activist Shireen Ritchie, the mother of film director Guy Ritchie, as well as Guy Black, a former director of the Press Complaints Commission who worked as media spokesman for Mr Howard during his time as leader and is now executive director of the Telegraph Media Group.

Campaigner Helen Newlove, whose husband was kicked to death by a gang outside their home, also becomes a Tory peer.



The reward for failure...Yard's disgraced boss made a life peer

By Stephen Wright

Sir Ian Blair, the first Metropolitan Police Commissioner to be sacked in modern times, was yesterday rewarded for his failure with a life peerage.



Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown nominated Sir Ian, who will sit as an independent crossbencher.



But the decision to elevate gaffe-prone Sir Ian to the Upper House stunned former colleagues at Scotland Yard, who have painful memories of his controversial reign.



His three and a half years in post were dogged by questions about his judgment, leadership credentials and politically correct style of policing.



Peer: Former Met Chief Sir Ian Blair becomes a crossbencher

His last months in office were mired in unprecedented controversy and infighting after he was accused of racism by a series of ethnic minority officers, including the country's top Asian policeman Tarique Ghaffur.



It resulted in the upper echelons of the Met being plunged into a virtual state of paralysis, with officers regarding Sir Ian as a lame duck chief no longer in charge of his force.



He was also at the centre of a series of controversies after Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by his officers at Stockwell Tube station in 2005.



Yet because of his close connections to Downing Street - he was once described as being 'New Labour's favourite cop' - he clung to power until October 2008. He was forced to step down then after Tory Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said he had no confidence in him.



But Oxford-educated Sir Ian, 57, who had 16 months remaining on his five-year contract, was not out of pocket as a result of his sacking.



He received a £400,000 pay-off - a good deal more than the compensation paid to the family of Jean Charles de Menezes.



Sir Ian joins a distinguished list of former Met Commissioners who have swapped their best blues and braid for the scarlet and ermine robes of the House of Lords: Lord Stevens, Lord Condon and Lord Imbert.

