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PMQs - The verdict
Daniel Forman
John Prescott, standing in for Tony Blair, provides so much material for the sketchwriters it is hard to know where to start.
With the prime minister in Indonesia David Cameron, as is custom, declined to take his place at the despatch box and instead left it to 'senior shadow cabinet member' William Hague to ask the questions and crack the jokes.
That pitted what are probably the Commons' most and least eloquent perfomers against each other in a match up that looked patently unfair.
But for the most part the deputy prime minister managed to survive the ordeal thanks to some self-deprectating lines about his own grasp of grammar and constant reminders of Hague's failure at the polls as a proper party leader.
Serial Labour rebel David Taylor opened affairs, urging the government to fulfill its manifesto commitments on Lords reform.
Prescott got off to a solid start, saying it was nice to have Taylor's support on the manifesto for once
Hague then asked him about the embarassing absence of last year's £200 council tax discount for pensioners in Gordon Brown's Budget
The chancellor, sat beside him, was heard to whisper his recommended answer: "We're giving more help to the councils."
Prescott, having said much the same in many more words, added that he was "delighted" to see Hague back at the despatch box at PMQs.
The Tories are getting through "so many leaders they are starting at the beginning again" he joked, they are now "so green they're even recycling their leaders".
Hague had some pre-prepared lines of his own. Prescott should be "more sympathetic to elderly council tax payers, he is over 65 [although] he didn't pay council tax" on his grace and favour flat.
"What was so special about election year?" he asked on the policy point.
Prescott then lived up this reputation, mumbling something about "government support to council tax".
Managing to ridicule his two favourite targets - Prescott and the French - at once, Hague said there was "so little English in that answer President Chirac would have been happy with it", in reference to the French leader's walkout from last week's EU summit after he was not addressed in his mother tongue.
But Prescott was ready for this line of attack and hit back with some jibes at Hague's judgement, particularly his description of Lord Archer as a "man of integrity".
"I may get the grammar wrong... but I'd sooner have my problem than his," he said.
The shadow foreign secretary's view of the French as "cheese eating surrender monkeys... Makes me look a master of diplomacy" he added.
Liberal Democrat spokesman David Heath reminded him that the House still hadn't "had an answer" on council tax.
But Prescott was keener to wish him luck in his bid to be Sir Manzies Campbell's permanent number two in an election later today.
The contest was "riveting to the attention of the nation", he said. "In my visit to Hull they talked of nothing else in the pubs."
The scribes in the press gallery, often a target of the deputy prime minister's ire, were then given two gems of Prescott-ese.
"You know when you're getting the briefings for this they say 'this one's a closed one'. You say 'oh yeah?'," he told baffled MPs in response to a pre-submitted question.
Criticising Tory tax plans he singled out opposition Treasury spokesman Theresa Villiers' recent comments on cutting spending, but couldn't quite remember her job title, eventually settling for "the shadow whatever she is".
However he let himself down with a lazy stereotype about a "Chinese take away problem" in response to charges of a £1m donation to the Tories by a "Chinese heroin baron".
Just when things looked to be fizzling out, Hague came back for a bit more banter, this time about Blair's apparent admission of a "mistake" in pre-announcing he would not fight a fourth election
"Does he agree with me that he was absoultely right to warn the prime minister that 'government instability' would result from saying that he would go?" he asked.
Prescott fell back on his problems with the English language and their respective achievments.
"Even though he has got difficulty understanding what I said, I clearly did not say that," he replied.
It might be difficult to understand "because he was the first Tory leader never to become prime minister" he added.
Asked "what is the timetable?" he later teased that: "That is for me to know and him to guess."
On subject of the 2001 election, Hague responded by raising Prescott's own most famous moment from the time.
"At least I got through the campaign without hitting anybody," he said.
As the standard of debate and the jokes rapidly detiorated, Prescott got off a couple more quick blows.
"I thought we'd finished Punch and Judy politics," he said. "I know I will be called Mr Punch but what does he think that leaves him as?"
He finished with laboured gags about Hague's "great personal prosperity" achieved under the current government from after dinner speaking and his 1977 Tory conference speech at the age of 16, saying he could have "that speech for free".
Hague had some much better lines, but in Commons terms this was men against boys and with the crowd on his side the boy probably won on points.
The verdict
Prescott: 7/10 - In relative terms, a triumph
Hague: 6/10 - Held back, perhaps worried about being too clever by half
Heath: 5/10 - Put in his place by Prescott
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Published: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:57:04 GMT+01
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