Prescott vs Hague

Judging by Simon Hoggart’s account of John Prescott’s latest performance at Prime Minister’s Questions, Prescott’s face-off with William Hague was both hilarious and a little pathetic. But mostly hilarious:

Tony Blair was still away, so John Prescott took questions. He faced William Hague. It was magnificent. Punch and Judy politics? This was Punch and Punch, Cannon meets Ball, a Roman ballista with a cauldron of boiling oil up on the battlements.

Then it turned nasty. They got out the Stanley knives. And the fact that every jab had been carefully planned in advance made no difference.

Hague rang the bell for round one, asking why pensioners, who had a £200 rebate on their council tax last year, weren’t getting it this year. What had changed? (Obviously the election is over, stupid.) Prescott thumped back. “I am delighted to see that the Tories have been going through leaders so fast they have started from the beginning again.”

Referring to one of the many scandals that buzz around this administration, Hague pointed out that Prescott had not paid his council tax at all. Meanwhile pensioner couples were paying an average of £250 more. Here is the Prescott reply: “It is the overall policy of this government to actually consider the pensioner payments and the other matters that we give to them and to consider in the round. That I think is what we have done, that is what we continue to do, and as for the argument about the payment of council tax, let me tell him, and he must know again in the comparison between our government and his government, that we gave in the response 39% increase in real terms … “

Hague hit back with this oven-ready zinger: “There was so little English in that last reply that President Chirac would have been happy with it.”

[…]

Prescott said Hague was the first Tory leader never to become prime minister. “At least I got through the campaign without hitting anybody,” said Hague.

[…]

Ouch!