John Prescott, a pork pie and me – my run-in with Labour’s deputy leader

Brandishing a pork pie on a silver tray, John Prescott stood on the stage during his 1995 Labour conference speech and bellowed: “Lies, lies! Porky pies!”

It was the defining moment of my stormy 40-year relationship with the combustible, irascible former Cunard steward who became Britain’s longest-serving deputy prime minister.

The object of his anger was my front page splash in that day’s Daily Express under the headline: “Prescott fury at new snub. Blair deputy is passed over for radio interview.”

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The story began: “John Prescott was ‘spitting blood’ last night at another humiliating snub by Tony Blair and his inner circle.

“The Labour deputy was said to be furious that Mr Blair’s friend Peter Mandelson will appear in a major end-of-conference BBC interview instead of him.”

The previous evening, with two Daily Express colleagues I’d dined at Brighton’s English’s seafood restaurant with Blair ally Jack Straw, then shadow home secretary.

I’d only filed about half a dozen paragraphs, but the office called and demanded more copy, as they wanted to splash the story. So I phoned another 10 paragraphs from English’s – back when journalists spoke their articles down the phone to a copytaker.

Mr Straw came to me the next day and said people who’d seen us dining thought he was the source. He wasn’t, I reassured him! It was a Labour MP who was a close ally of Mr Prescott.

In his conference speech, Mr Prescott attempted to summon me to the stage to be presented with the pork pie. I resisted the temptation. But he wasn’t finished.

After his speech, with TV crews from Sky News and Newsnight in tow, he came into the press room to remonstrate with me. And he did indeed present me with the pork pie.

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In the next day’s Daily Express, under the headline “That’s pie in the sky, John”, I wrote: “First let me declare an interest. I am a fan of Labour deputy leader John Prescott.

“Over the years, he has shouted at me, sworn at me and once poked me in the chest in the committee corridor of the Commons.”

Right up to his sad death, I remained a fan. And the last time we met, in the House of Lords when his health was deteriorating, he said to me: “You always tell it like it is, Jon.”

Somewhat startled, I replied: “You didn’t always say that, John!” But clearly the old warhorse had mellowed in old age and was prepared to forgive if not forget.

Before the 1995 spat, when Mr Prescott was a member of Neil Kinnock’s shadow cabinet, I’d often ring him for a quote for the newspapers I worked for before the Daily Express.

Often driving one of his legendary “two Jags”, he’d begin by berating me and complaining about “your f***ing paper” before eventually saying: “What do you want to know.”

When Bryan Gould resigned from John Smith’s shadow cabinet in 1992 over a left-right policy clash, I asked Mr Prescott if he too was planning to resign.

“Don’t be daft!” he replied bluntly. He may have been outspoken and combative. But he was also a pragmatist, as he was to prove in his 10 years as deputy prime minister.

Our last clash before he mellowed was when he stood unsuccessfully to become police and crime commissioner for Humberside in 2012, which I covered for Sky News.

After his defeat, I asked him – not unreasonably, I thought – if he was going to retire now. “Retire? Retire!” he shouted at me. But he later did, when his health began to fail.

I was heartened when he spoke to me in friendly terms the last time we met. Unlike some senior politicians, he wasn’t one to bear grudges, after all.

And what became of the pork pie? I took it back to the Express office and presented it to a rather bemused Sir Nicholas Lloyd, the editor. We didn’t eat it, though.

The pie, after all, had legendary status. Like John Prescott did.

We’ll never see his like again.