- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Headline Review; First Edition First Impression edition (29 May 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0755317750
- ISBN-13: 978-0755317752
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.8 x 4.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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224,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #31 in Books > Biography > Political > Britain > Labour & Socialism
- #41 in Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Countries & Regions > UK > Political Parties > Labour Party
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
PREZZA: PULLING NO PUNCHES finally tells the remarkable journey of an 11-plus failure who became a union firebrand, a campaigning MP and Britain's longest-serving deputy prime minister.
Whether you regard John Prescott as a street brawler, traitor to the left, grace-and-favour croquet player, philanderer and minister without a job; OR as the man who ensured crucial party modernisation, who helped get Labour back into power, who kept the peace between Brown and Blair, who fought with Al Gore to get the ground-breaking Kyoto Agreement signed and the voice of reason in the Cabinet - his life story makes for a compelling read.
Whether you regard John Prescott as a street brawler, traitor to the left, grace-and-favour croquet player, philanderer and minister without a job; OR as the man who ensured crucial party modernisation, who helped get Labour back into power, who kept the peace between Brown and Blair, who fought with Al Gore to get the ground-breaking Kyoto Agreement signed and the voice of reason in the Cabinet - his life story makes for a compelling read.
About the Author
The son of a railway signalman, John Prescott failed his 11-plus exam and became a steward in the Merchant Navy. He went on to attend Ruskin College, Oxford and then Hull University where he obtained a degree in economics and economic history. He was elected to Parliament in 1970 as MP for Hull East. Following the death of John Smith in 1994 he became deputy leader of the Labour party in the first leadership election under the 'one member, one vote' system he had passionately advocated at the 1993 Labour conference.
Following Labour's election victory in 1997, Prescott was appointed deputy prime minister, a position he held until his retirement from the job in June 2007.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and easy to read,
By Ch0pski "ch0pski" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Prezza: My Story: Pulling No Punches (Hardcover)
This is not a heavyweight book, it's not really comparable to memoirs by Thatcher or Campbell, but it is still an enjoyable and informative read.
Prescott is candid about deeply personal things like his struggles with bulimia and academia. He is less candid about the true nature of some of the people he has worked with. No one really gets a kicking, which is surprising for someone like Prescott who says in his book that one of his best qualities is his professional aggression. Bearing in mind the book's title, I would have liked to have seen him land a few more well placed blows on his opponents... But Prescott has inarguably led a fascinating life and as such this is an inspiring success story of battling against the odds to achieve big things at the highest level of public service. 'Prezza' is not one for the political academics, but it would be a great book for those with an interest in the Labour Party and current affairs to chuck in the hand luggage for a bit of aeroplane reading.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Didn't do what I'd hoped,
By Chris (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Prezza: My Story: Pulling No Punches (Hardcover)
This is a very easy read! It doesn't read like a typical autobiography of a politician, Prescott seems to have only read a couple of books, such as Campbell's diaries, and hasn't done much work, so some figures are based on his memory, and aren't checked out. His biases are played out, so despite his protests he does come across as someone who doesn't have an equal view of women, or value anything about tories - indeed his description of a conservation with the then PM Major Prezza comes across as rude.
As a book that may capture Prescott the man this may do the job, but for a deputy PM, or a high profile politician, it is slight, we can only have greater hope for Tony Blair's biography
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Precott in his own words,
By
This review is from: Prezza: My Story: Pulling No Punches (Hardcover)
John Prescott is one of the last of a dying political breed: the local trade union official who rose from the shop floor (or in his case, ships' decks) to be selected as an MP and then progress through to the cabinet.
If his book makes one thing clear, it's that he's always felt - and usually been - an outsider. As such, being just about the last remaining Old Labour member of an unapologetically New Labour government placed him in a role where he was comfortably uncomfortable. He doesn't seem happy unless fighting against someone, whether that be ships' masters, his trade union bosses, Tories, or the 'beautiful people' in Labour for whom modernisation meant dumping the party's heritage. Or egg-throwers. That episode may well be what he ultimately becomes best remembered for and it's something he seems proud of, given the number of references or allusions to it throughout, from reminiscences of his times entertaining passengers at sea as a participant in boxing bouts, to another incident where he hit someone while Deputy PM, to the book's subtitle, 'Pulling no Punches'. As for that description, it feels largely true. It's not a deep personal self-analysis (failings are invariably put down to his having failed the Eleven Plus or poor grammar) but it does feel quite an honest account of his life. The comparison with, for example, Peter Mandelson's book, The Third Man, is stark: there, every word felt as if it had been considered before being committed to paper, as he still fought for his legacy. Prescott's is definitely written in the past tense. One reason why it is so open is that I suspect that while every word is his, he didn't write any of them. The style is very conversational and it reads as if the book's resulted from a long series of interviews between Prescott and Hunter Davies, after which Davies has 'knocked it into shape and made sense of it all', as Prescott says in the acknowledgements, but left the wording verbatim in as far as possible. One other aspect of this approach is that the chapters tend to be thematic rather than purely chronological, which is no bad thing. If he shows few if any regrets politically, he does appear more vulnerable when discussing his battle with bulimia and his affair, though his description of the former has much more emotional depth than the latter. Overall, it's a lightweight book as political autobiographies go but one surprisingly worth reading. I didn't have any great expectations beforehand but I'm glad I bought it and would recommend it to anyone interested in understanding both New Labour in government and the Labour of a time gone and unlikely to return.
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