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About The Houses

by | 2nd, June 2006

More on that later. For now the papers are full of the news that after fighting to keep his grace-and-favour mansion in the May Cabinet reshuffle, Prescott has relinquished his grip on the place.

We can speculate on the reasons for this move. Perhaps he saw that swanning around playing croquet was not the stuff of the self-styled working class hero, the tireless grafter. Perhaps he realised using such a massive house made him look greedy. Perhaps he lost the keys in a croquet bet.

But while we blindly guess, Prescott illuminates. He tells the Times that his use of the place is “the subject of public controversy and criticism”. It is a “matter of concern among some MPs and the Labour Party”.

Indeed it is. So he has given it up. But at least he retains his use of another grace-and-favour pad at Admiralty House, London. And there is his five bedroom home in Hull, the one with the turrets. Prescott will not be homeless. Don’t worry.

And neither will he be silenced. The Guardian has an interview with the Deputy Prime Minister. Over a bacon roll on a train up north – he just so happens to be going home for his 68th birthday dinner with wife Pauline – Prescott talks.

The croquet was not his idea. “They say ‘Can we play croquet?’ I can’t reply ‘Sorry, you can’t play croquet, it’s against my ideological position’,” says Prescott.

He pleads ignorance. “I don’t know the rules. Isn’t it to put the ball through the hoop and beat the other bugger? It’s the imagery. It’s really just a competitive game, like Monopoly.”

Monopoly? Isn’t that the game where you buy loads of land and stick houses on it?

We can’t be sure. But what we do realise is that it’s all looking a little cosy – the bacon sandwich, the word “bugger”, the revelation that birthday tea was a homemade hotpot.

John says that he has learnt a lot about family in the past few weeks. “I don’t think you can get through something like this without them.”

Nor for that matter can you get through it without some favourable press. The Guardian does all but smear this interview in brown sauce.



Posted: 2nd, June 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink