John Prescott QUITS House of Lords as ex-Deputy PM’s 50-year career comes to and end
JOHN Prescott has been retired from the House of Lords – bringing an end to his 50-year career in Parliament.
The former deputy PM was a Labour MP for several decades before being appointed a life peer in 2010.
The 86-year-old has only spoken in the chamber once since suffering a stroke in 2019 and under recent rules has been unseated for not attending for more than six months.
Lord Prescott served as Tony Blair’s right-hand-man between 1997 and 2007 and took the reins when his boss was away.
He was first elected in Hull in 1970 but remains most famous for punching a protester who threw an egg at him during a rally in 2001.
And he was nicknamed “two Jags” after it emerged he both owned a Jaguar while had the run of a second ministerial car.
After spending his MP career criticising the Lords as an “offence to democracy”, he shrugged off hypocrisy claims when appointed – saying he accepted a peerage because his wife Pauline wanted him to.
Others whose membership ended due to non-attendance included former media mogul Lord Black of Crossharbour.
The ex-proprietor of the Daily Telegraph and a number of other world newspapers served more than three years in prison after being convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007.
The Canadian-born British citizen was pardoned by then US president Donald Trump in 2019.
Lord Black was the former head of Hollinger International, which once owned the Daily Telegraph, Chicago Sun-Times, Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers in the US and Canada.
He was ennobled in 2001, having renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a Conservative peer.
Lord McFall also announced the retirement from the House of bestselling novelist Lord Jeffrey Archer of Weston-Super-Mare with effect from July 4.
He took his seat in the unelected chamber in 1992.