The day Prescott told me, ‘I’ve got that thing Lady Di’s got’ – he meant bulimia

In a personal commentary, Independent political reporter Simon Walters, who knew Prescott well, recalls how lunches with Tony Blair’s colourful deputy could lead to candid confessions – and interviews could lead to rants and rages. He also tells of how loyal Prescott bitterly regretted backing Blair over the Iraq war

I got to know John Prescott well when he came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. He knew the Labour Party and unions inside out. He was also uproariously good company and could be unpredictable and unguarded – though you crossed him at your peril.

In the early days of New Labour, I had lunch with him in Westminster’s Footstool restaurant. He was quieter than usual, barely touching his food. When I asked if he was OK, he said: “No, I have had terrible stomach trouble, really terrible.” He muttered something about eating lots of digestive biscuits.

I asked if he had seen a doctor. He had – and had been diagnosed with a medical condition, but couldn’t recall the term.

“It’s that thing Lady Di’s got,” he said. “It begins with b.” “Bulimia?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s it.”

I’d be lying if, along with expressing my concern, I didn’t own up to the fact that my journalistic side was quietly telling me this would make a good story. He anticipated that. “It’s off the record. You’re not putting that in the bloody paper! Right?” he glowered. So I didn’t.

It was not until a decade later, after he had stepped down as deputy prime minister, that Prescott chose to publicly disclose his struggle with bulimia. It stayed secret until he described in his 2008 autobiography how he used to binge on burgers, chocolate and crisps as a result of the stress of public life – and he rightly won praise for discussing it openly.

John Prescott with Simon Walters in New Labour’s heyday (Simon Walters)

On another occasion, I experienced his well-known capacity to fly off the handle while interviewing him in a small hotel room in India, where he was on a ministerial visit. We were talking about what Tony Blair referred to in a generous tribute to Prescott today as “the way some people made fun of his (Prescott’s) use of the English language”.

I suggested to Prescott – innocently but clumsily – that perhaps he had a form of dyslexia.

At this he exploded into fury, leaping off his seat towards me, launching into a four-letter rant about how he was sick and tired of being mocked for his lack of education, his northern accent, his past job as a cruise-line steward.

He was so angry the interview was halted and I left the room while he calmed down. A few minutes later, he came out and apologised for overreacting and the interview resumed. In his tribute to Prescott today, Blair gave a revealing glimpse into their relationship during the Labour government they led.

Reflecting on their contrasting characters and political styles, Blair told how his deputy would often march into his Downing Street office and tell him: “I know you’re up to something. I don’t quite know what it is, but I know you’re up to something.”

Blair recalled with a chuckle: “I would protest, saying: ‘Nah, nah, John. You’ve got it all wrong.’ And, of course, he’d always be right: I would be up to something.”

Blair said they would then thrash out any “difficult issue” – and once a decision was made, Prescott would “get behind it”.

In fact, there was one occasion when Blair was “up to something”; when Prescott fell into line, as ever – but did not learn what was really going on until years later: the Iraq war. He never got over it.

In 2016, Prescott said he was haunted by having supported the war and publicly accused Blair of keeping him and the rest of the cabinet in the dark about the fatally flawed legal case for it.

“I will live with the decision and the catastrophic consequences of the war for the rest of my life,” Prescott said. He regretted having supported it, now accepted “with great sadness and anger” that it was illegal – as critics had always said – and courageously apologised on behalf of himself and the Labour Party.

The brutal truth is that for all Blair’s warm words today, despite Prescott’s official status as his No 2, in reality he was way down the pecking order, below Gordon Brown and powerful advisers like Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson. And he knew it.

Blair spoke today of his appreciation of Prescott’s underrated “high intelligence” and “extraordinary instinctive sense”. How he must now wish he had shown more faith in those qualities when he made the ill-fated decision to go to war in Iraq without thrashing it out fully and frankly with his trusting, plain-talking deputy.

There have been slicker and more sophisticated politicians than John Prescott. But few as down to earth, decent, likeable, brave and honest.