Rum Ration
the Navy Network

Candidates for this dubious honour must be plentiful and literally standing in line for the title. I am sure you can come up with your own firm favourites but my strong candidate for this year’s award of total cnut of the year is John Prescott and here’s why:

John Prescott is a walking contradiction – partly fact with a large amount of total fiction thrown into the mix. Don’t believe me? Ask any merchant seaman involved in the national seamen’s strike of 1966 in Liverpool where Prescott was one of the local NUS shop stewards.Don’t know where this perception of JP as a rough tough two-fisted champion of the working classes started but this fairy tale continues to be peddled by people who obviously never knew the man. Such was his poor handling as an agitator for the strike and his pathetic handling of negotiations as an NUS representative at discussions with the ship owners that the strike failed and fell apart locally and then nationally. Such was the seafarer’s contempt for him, his weak performance and ultimate betrayal of them that to this day he remains a pariah on Merseyside.

During the sixties and long before that, many genuine hard case seamen shipped out of the port; and sorry to burst the bubble of his supporters, but Prescott was never even close to being one of them. In fact on more than a few occasions JP has had his jaw jacked as a result of shooting off his rather big mouth to the wrong sailor. Although being persona non grata in Liverpool he had the temerity to attend and officiate at the unveiling of a Merchant Navy Memorial in 1999 at the Pier Head in the city. He was heavily attended by an army of minders on the day which is just as well,because once he started his pompous and condescending speech he was subjected to such a tirade of abuse and derision that the wimp literally ran in fear from the rostrum to his waiting limousine. His ‘bodyguards’ were left struggling to cover his fat arse allowing him to escape the wrath of the crowd of veteran seamen and a many of those bodyguards were seriously injured in the ensuing fracas.

It brings to mind the egg-throwing incident a few years back. Easy to throw a punch at a heckler in the crowd when you know your police escort will instantly intervene to stop any retaliatory action or harm happening to you. John Prescott’s public persona is a sham that could only be believed by limp-wristed politicians like Tony Blair who saw fit to appoint him as Deputy PM as a fop to the left wingers of the party as the face of old Labour. Subsequently, so many of his pet projects have either never come to fruition or have failed miserably,all due to his monumental incompetence in that role.

Instead of retiring gracefully he went back to sea in his dotage on the Queen Mary 2 on a free £40,000 Caribbean cruise in exchange for delivering three lectures to a captive audience - the passengers. Billed asentertainment, in the ships theatre JP stumbled through only two of his lectures frequently dropping his papers, losing his place and constantly repeating himself. JP peppered his speech with risqué jokes and references to his days as a steward with the long suffering Pauline sitting in the front row. These I have it on good authority included: “I used to bring knickers back from New York in boxes of seven, one for every day, didn’t I love? My favourite was the skimpy black pair for Saturday with the little hole in the crotch.” He then excruciatingly went on to refer to her unwanted pregnancy before he met her at age 16 which had ended in adoption; hardly a nice thing to say about your wife at any time but certainly not on a cruise ship stage. My source from that cruise was that his first two deliveries went down so badly with the paying passengers that his third presentation was cancelled by order of the Captain and he and his wife were confined to their stateroom with an ‘alleged’stomach bug for the remainder of the voyage. I rest my case.

Red Sailor