Watch: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown pay tribute to ‘working class hero’ John Prescott at Hull funeral

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown pay tribute to 'working class hero' at funeral of John PrescottPA, Pool/BBC

Transcript

00:00And that is John we will never see as like again, a man of the people he certainly was,

00:05in a class by himself, a one of, one of a kind, but one of us in the best sense of the

00:10word. Unique, remarkable, extraordinary. John Lennon would have called him a working class

00:17hero.

00:18Like most progressive movements, the Labour Party and power are uncomfortable in each

00:23other's company. In its rational moments, which are too often preceded by a prolonged

00:28period of opposition, the party knows it needs power to fulfil its purpose. But it

00:35sort of distrusts power, finds it desirable but dangerous to its self-worth, will advocate

00:41change but be curiously conservative in driving it, or accepting the pain, the compromises,

00:48the trade-offs, which are its natural accompaniment.

00:53This is the contradiction which John was instrumental in resolving, and in doing so

01:00created the conditions by which that government governed more than twice as long as any Labour

01:06government before it. John had the brain to make an argument and the personality to make

01:14it appealing.