Tom Richmond: How Prescott's revenge was a perk of the job

"Media froth," the croquet-playing former Deputy Prime Minister would splutter before going into a rant about Tories mocking his working class origins.

Yet, according to none other than Prescott's commendably loyal wife, Pauline, her husband was besotted with his standing in Government – and never more so than on day one of New Labour's reign when grace-and-favour homes were allocated to senior ministers.

When the couple were shown to Admiralty House, Mrs P's response – according to her memoir – was to look at its neoclassical grand entrance and say: "Oh dear, John, that's a long way to come down and put out the milk bottles".

Her class warrior husband and longstanding Hull MP, however, had other ideas.

The ground floor flat was discounted. "John looked at the painting of Nelson's mistress and said, 'She looks like Margaret Beckett'."

Flat two – used by Lord Mayhew, the former Northern Ireland Secretary – was discounted because it was not "quite right".

Mrs P says her husband then asked to see another flat that he had learned about. She takes up the story.

"The housekeeper hesitated. 'Yes, but that's normally reserved for the Defence Minister', she replied. 'Can we see it?' he asked, knowing that the role of the Deputy Prime Minister outranked that of Defence Minister.

"When we walked into the second floor flat we knew that was the one. There was a lovely reception area, then a long corridor with an amazing ceiling leading to a large lounge. It had three bedrooms and a dining room from which you could look out along the Mall."

Once used by Winston Churchill, it had been the residence of Michael Portillo, the last Tory Defence Secretary. Its location was ideal for the Prescotts and their wish to entertain, though Mrs P had no idea about the bedroom's subsequent place in history when her husband's infidelity was exposed.

But they soon had a shock – officials at the MoD promptly removed the furniture from the flat because it belonged to them. It prompted a

typical Prescottian fit of pique until the dining table was returned somewhat gracelessly.

And, when Prescott says he's a man not to hold grudges, perhaps they should take note of his wife's epitaph to this escapade.

"John managed to get his own back on the civil servant some years later when the man in question came to work for him," she discloses.

"Ushering him into his new office, John watched the civil servant's face fall as he walked into a room stripped bare but for a telephone."

How petty. Yet what did one expect from this class hypocrite?

DAVID Cameron was, apparently, at his statesmanlike best when he met Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, the other day.

Not on the agenda was a withering commentary piece in Le Monde – the French daily newspaper – which took George Osborne, Cameron's key ally,

to task.

It talked about the Shadow Chancellor's "rather basic judgment",

his "intellectual lightness" and his "lack of courteous manners and punctuality" – all recurring themes in this column. It concluded: "How

can someone as nave as this be the future Chancellor?"

And this is before Osborne's first EU summit as Chancellor. Oh dear.

THIS tale – recounted by a reader from East Yorkshire – reveals the extent to which successive governments have lost control of the welfare system.

He is friends with a builder who, because of the economic downturn, was unable to sell three houses that he had constructed. He let them out, and three unmarried mothers took them up.

All three were aged in their 20s and had several children between them. Of course, their partners/husbands had cleared off. The builder's wife had to deal with the contracts with the Social Security Agency and she discovered that the three of them were receiving, wait for it, 82,000 a year in benefits.

It beats working for a living – but what about the poor people,

hardworking taxpayers, who are footing the bill?

COMPARE and contrast the adequacy – and effectiveness – of these two responses to the Government's high-speed rail plans.

Veteran Keighley MP Ann Cryer, who is standing down at the election, asked whether this was a bad time for Network Rail to announce hundreds of redundancies of trackside maintenance workers – at the very time when the rail network is about to expand?

It was a fair question – unlike the rant by Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Transport Secretary, who was admonished by the Speaker for not asking any questions in her response.

For once, John Bercow, the Speaker of the Commons, was in order.

MORE evidence emerges which diminishes the value of Ofsted school inspections. A large inner-city comprehensive in Yorkshire recently came under the watchdog's scrutiny. Yet, by their own admission, the inspectors had not taught in the classroom for more than 20 years.

How, therefore, can they criticise teachers – when they have little idea about how the job has changed in recent times? Wouldn't it better to use recently-retired teachers rather than career bureaucrats?

SOME refreshing candour from Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and Sheffield Hallam MP, that he's not done his homework ahead of the

televised debates between the party leaders.

"I want to be myself, as much as I can be. You have to have a balance between being prepared but not over-preparing, rehearsing but not over-rehearsing. At the moment, I am probably under-rehearsed and under-prepared," he says.