Breaking: John Prescott joins the TaxPayers’ Alliance
Posted on July 7, 2010It’s all very well for an Opposition to oppose, but doing so in direct contravention of things you yourself actually did in Government has a remarkable capacity to make you look stupid. I was going to write about this in hypothetical terms, but happily John Prescott has kindly stepped in to provide a perfect case study.
You’d have been forgiven for thinking when he was sworn in as Lord Prescott that it was the pinnacle of political hypocrisy. Well, it seems that was actually just a dry run for the things he intended to say once he was snugly in the ermine.
Yesterday, his Lordship posted a withering attack on Twitter:
“Con Dems slash housing benefit for poor but happy to pay £30,000 a year private school fees for diplomats – £15m a year”
This got up my nose a bit. After all, he seemed to have no problem paying these fees when he was in Government – and whilst they are excessive their existence doesn’t magically invalidate any other spending cuts.
Furthermore, when he was in power I vividly remember them scrapping Assisted Places, removing the only opportunity for bright kids who couldn’t afford the fees to get into private schools. Didn’t he do that, I pointed out, whilst at the same time paying the exact same fees for diplomats’ kids that he is now criticising?
Cue awkward silence. Eventually, the best Lord Prescott could muster was a complaint that the TaxPayers’ Alliance had given “no quote” on the topic.
Unfortunately for him, the Daily Telegraph, Sky News, the Metro, and even his favourite The Mirror record in black and white that the TPA has criticised this spending for years. I should know – I wrote the quotes and gave the TV interviews!
The question for John Prescott is this: he didn’t lose a minute’s sleep about these school fees when he was in power, so why is he suddenly howling about them in Opposition? What changed?
It couldn’t be that his Party lost the election, could it? No, a man of principle like Lord P would never bend in the political wind of base tribalism. The more charitable answer is surely that he was persuaded by the arguments of the TaxPayers’ Alliance and changed his mind. Nice to see you joining the programme, John.
PS To be absolutely clear, I do understand why the children of diplomats (and members of the Forces) may need to be sent to boarding school when their parents are abroad. I just think we could save money by sending them to one of the many excellent state boarding schools, rather than Eton.
Tags: Assisted Places, Daily Telegraph, Diplomats, Education, Hypocrisy, John Prescott, New Labour, Politics, propaganda, Sky News, TaxPayers' Alliance, The Metro, The Mirror, Twitter
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Public spending
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Wallace and Steven Walker, Old Holborn. Old Holborn said: RT @wallaceme: Crash Bang Wallace: BREAKING: John Prescott joins the TaxPayers' Alliance http://bit.ly/aqcYFS [...]
29.07.2010 09:01
always feel that shipping lost a great steward when he changed careers. he could have done so much had he stuck at. it would have been such a good public service. instead he goes in for a career for which he was intellectually not suited and wasted his time. now that Mrs P is Lady P he doesn’t need to do anything. he could just take the £300 per day for turning up, nice lunch, sleep on the benches then back on the train to Hull (it is a U not an E isn’t it).
Instead he continues to get involved in things he knows very little about. History is going to record that he failed to stop Gordon Brown ruining the Labour Party in 1995, failed to run the Transport and everything else ministry, failed as DPM to stop Blair invading other countries, failed to hold Blair to account over policies to renew the country, failed to stop Brown shafting Blair, failed to stop Brown ruining the economy. So really it is sad a real triumph of ambition over ability.
29.07.2010 09:19
Well Prescott was amongst fellow failures in the Labour Party then!
29.07.2010 11:38
I’ve asked many, many times if anyone can point to a single useful thing John Prescott has done during his career. His Wikipedia page seems comprehensive but the authors barely hide their contempt. Seriously – anyone help me out here?
29.07.2010 09:24
The tonnage tax.
30.07.2010 10:29
I think you are being too kind, Bruce. I hope the Prsecott is paying proper tax on all his incomes.
29.07.2010 09:25
Surely there is an excellent case now for redefining the meaning of the word “Hypocrit” to reflect his good Lordships services to hypocrisy?
29.07.2010 09:31
Have a look at Chris Mullin’s memoirs – Mullin was a junior minister under John Prescott. Mullin records that departmental meetings basically consisted of Prescott rambling aimlessly without a break for about 45 minutes, after which the meeting would end, having accomplished Sweet Fanny Adams. Prescott is a complete joke.
29.07.2010 09:56
AndyN ‘Prescott is a complete joke.’ – A joke who has grown fat both in body and wallet during his years in power. A living example of the ‘Peter Principle’ – “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Or beyond in Prescott’s case. To my eyes Prescott was one of the nastier members of a Labour Cabinet (and hangers-on) packed with deeply unpleasant people. One day I will construct a hierarchy of Labour Cabinet vileness, but I will need an empty stomach and a tranquilliser.
29.07.2010 11:04
Lard Prescott of Pies, a perfect example of a Buffoon.
29.07.2010 10:25
I’m surprised he went into politics given that he made his millions as a steward. You’d have thought he would have stayed where the money was.
29.07.2010 10:33
He missed his vocation as Head Steward on the “Titanic” but he helped sink this country nonetheless. He is a monster of hypocrisy and greed, which is allied to a form of low cunning, zero intelligence and a total absence of scruples. A total swine.
29.07.2010 11:00
The State boarding schools aren’t a magic answer. Although there are 35 of them, most of them only take very small numbers of boarders, which many parents wouldn’t think was a good educational or social environment for their children.
Of the 35:
– 21 have fewer than 10% of pupils boarding;
– 28 have fewer than a third boarding
That only leaves 7 state schools that are really “boarding schools”, with more than a third of pupils boarding (rather than schools with a few boarders). Of those, 2 are already military schools (so are already full of military children), and another specialises in agricultural training (so won’t be suitable for many pupils/parents).
So there are only 4 that could take significant numbers of military or diplomatic children, and one of those only takes boys.
But yes, some limits on the level of fees that will be paid, excluding the most expensive, sounds sensible – and do we really need so many diplomats and so many foreign wars?
29.07.2010 11:33
Quelle surprise. Prescott drops himself in it again. Never fails to amaze me just how dumb the electorate can be to elect such a complete eejit to high office. Steward on ship was probably a pinnacle of achievement.
29.07.2010 11:45
State boarding schools don’t seem to save much money either.
From the ones that disclose fees on their website, they seem to be in the range £8,000 – £12,000. But that’s just the boarding fee – on top of that the State has to pay the education cost. Estimates for the average cost to the State of educating a pupil in a normal school range from £6,000 to £9,000. So the total cost to the State of sending a child of a military/diplomatic family to a State boarding school is somewhere between £14,000 and £21,000.
Since the average boarding cost is £24,000, there are probably independent schools that fall within that same range.
The answer isn’t State vs private, it’s a cap on fee levels and reducing the number of overseas postings.
29.07.2010 11:48
The scrapping of assisted places still angers me. It is pure hypocrisy for a group of public school boys to ban the poor from private school, burning the bridges of opportunity behind them.
29.07.2010 12:16
Er, well……..”I just think we could save money by sending them to one of the many excellent state boarding schools, rather than Eton.”
For the forces, anyway, there’s a limit on what is paid for. And it’s not far off what a state boarding school costs. They certainly don’t cover full fees at Eton.
29.07.2010 12:17
The maximum when Sky covered the story was £7,700 a term – £1,000 below the cost of a term at Eton, making it well within reach for someone on a generous FCO salary.
29.07.2010 18:03
This may be a good thing. Poacher turned gamekeeper. Who better to rail against Government stupidity and waste. He must know all about stupidity and waste as he was the biggest villain by some margin. In a fair society he would be demolished and something useful made from the remains, like a paper weight or something. Dolt!
29.07.2010 12:19
Polly at her best in the Guardian the other day, saying that the battering Prescott got for joining the Lords was all about class. Cur vast number of people posting – not it isn’t, it is because it’s because the man is a tit.
Quite.
29.07.2010 15:31
John Prescott, all by himself, is an intellectual and cognitive continent.
29.07.2010 15:41
I had intended to put ‘wasteland’, where I have put ‘continent’. The temptation of size got the better of me and I hit submit before checking. Oh dear.
So I have to make this apparently contradictory statement function. Here goes: as with Europe, he does not work; as Africa he is sweaty; as Asia he is elephantine; as N America, he behaves like a cowboy; as S America he is on permanent carnival; as Australia, the average IQ rises when he leaves; with Antarctica, anything good that might exist is undiscovered. Phew! Well, what do you expect, Oscar Wilde?
29.07.2010 17:05
Look what the Americans think of him:
http://motivatedphotos.com/?id=92246
http://motivatedphotos.com/?id=92820
http://motivatedphotos.com/?id=92819
http://motivatedphotos.com/?id=92821
http://motivatedphotos.com/?id=92245
29.07.2010 18:08
Once a bar steward always a bar steward.
But surely Prescott’s greatest achievement as a Socialist will be his huge contribution to Sociology. He has, after all, invented a completely new approach to marriage reconciliation.
Today the most effective way to repair a broken marriage (after the husband gets caught shagging another woman) is simply to have the Queen appoint him to the House of Lords which makes the wife a Lady. This is easily the best use for the HoL since Labout screwed the place up in 1997.
31.07.2010 07:09