Film and TV

John Prescott. A class apart?
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A farce over class with John Prescott

By Mike Jennings
November 05, 2008

John Prescott has always been a polarising figure during his time in politics, but his latest venture seems a little unusual.

Far from his day-job as the MP for Hull, he’s presented a two-part television series – with his wife, no less – examining the state of the British class system.

The first programme examined the history of the class system in Britain and how it’s come to be the way it is today – but the second show always promised to be both more interesting and more divisive.

That’s because it asks questions about the way the British class system is changing, and if celebrity culture, the super-rich and those who sponge off benefits are having a detrimental affect on the make-up of our population.

Prescott rallied against public schools and proudly displayed his Labour roots. When visiting Rugby School, alarming statistics about the way publicly-educated children (unfairly, according to him) get ahead in life riled the former deputy PM, and he wasted no time in quizzing pupils on their class origins.

Predictably, Prescott had lined up a group of the world’s poshest, snottiest-sounding kids to bear the brunt of the MP’s question time – and he clearly took glee in picking holes in the arguments of sneering pupils, some of whom even admitted that their voice had changed as a result of attending fee-paying schools.

You get the feeling, though, that this show is full of arguments and debates that no one will win.

The posh kids are far too snotty to let their notions of the class system – and what class they may be in – be changed, and Prescott is far too antagonistic towards anyone who hints at being well-spoken to change his ways.

It defeated the point of it being a serious documentary because of the unintentionally funny moments that littered the show.

As the programme continued, Prescott spoke to more folk at the edge of the British class system – from posh kids one minute to Jodie Marsh the next.

It was rare to get the feeling that this was a serious exploration of the class system when Prescott resolutely refused to talk to anyone remotely normal and without extremes.

It was this that was the problem.

Prescott’s journey through the class system can’t be taken seriously when the whole thing seems to be setting him up for comedy encounters and slightly silly punch-lines.

I think he’ll have to work a bit more at being a TV presenter – and, for now, he should stick to Jags and croquet.

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The worst type of champagne socialist - continually spouting off about poor upbringings and the need for social change, while lapping at the golden cup of Ministers' perks.

Fred Bloggs
05/11/2008 at 14:02

Prescott, the man with the largest chip known to mankind on his shoulder, has spent a life time trying to destroy any tradition or lifestyle of the middle class through class envy. From concreting over SE England, using people's gardens as brown field sites, overriding opposition to ridiculous developments, fox hunting etc etc. What this idiot has never understood is that many people sacrifice their lifestyle to be able to pay for private education because they rightly or wrongly can't trust state education. They are not rich - they spend their money on what they see as important rather than booze, fags, Sky, lottery etc. The question should be after ten years of this labour govt is not 'why do independent school pupils have more success?', but 'why aren't state schools able to achieve the same success?'. Prescott's typical answer would be to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator rather than raising the standards and then there would be no benchmarks to show how they are failing. A typical soviet style politician, telling us how to live whilst his own nose was buried in the trough of taxpayer's money.