End Of The Road For Prescott
Updated: 9:37pm UK, Friday 16 November 2012
By Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent
For John Prescott, in the east coast resort of Bridlington, it really was the end of the peer show as he failed in his comeback bid.
The 74-year-old former deputy prime minister, an MP in Hull for 40 years, was defeated by a Tory trade unionist and businessman who became a councillor only five years ago.
Matthew Grove, whose election as Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside was a massive boost for David Cameron among all the other poor results for the Tories, told me he began his working life gutting chickens in a poultry processing plant.
Well, he certainly fileted Lord Prescott, beating him reasonably comfortably in the second round of this contest, thanks largely to a better turnout than elsewhere in the Tory stronghold of the East Ridling of Yorkshire and the second preferences of UKIP voters.
But it could have been very different.
The most disappointed man in the wonderful Spa entertainment complex overlooking the lashing waves of the north sea in Bridlington was not John Prescott but Paul Davison, a former police superintendent from Beverley, in the East Riding.
He stood as an independent and came within about 600 votes of beating Mr Grove for second place in the first round of voting.
After he was eliminated and Lord Prescott and Mr Grove went through into the second round, Mr Davison told me that if the Government had let independents like him have a mail shot to voters he would have made it through to the second round.
And I think he's probably right.
But Mr Grove, like Mr Davison, was an impressive candidate, a down-to-earth, no-nonsense Tory who's about as different from the "arrogant, out of touch posh boys" that Nadine Dorries complains about as it's possible to be.
At the end of the evening, I asked John Prescott if he was going to retire. He gave me a filthy look.
But at least it was an improvement on his greeting when he arrived, in a Jag, naturally.
When I asked him as he stepped out of the Jag how confident he was of winning, he turned to me and said: "B****r off."
Now the votes have been counted, I imagine he meant that no, he wasn't confident.
Down on the south coast, meanwhile, another ex-minister in his 70s, Tory Michael Mates, also slumped to defeat. Like Prescott, Mates has form for using colourful language.
In the 1990s he sent the tycoon Asil Nadir a watch inscribed with the words: "Don't let the b*****s get you down."
David Cameron insists he's not disheartened despite the derisory turnout in these elections.
Humberside saw the highest turnout, just under 20%, apart from Avon and Somerset, where voters were also electing a mayor in Bristol.
But the national average was about 15% and it was below 10% in some places.
The PM – and the victorious Matthew Grove in Humberside – predicted the turnout would be higher next time round.
And I'm sure they're right, although John Prescott said in a surprisingly gracious speech in defeat "if" they were held again, suggesting Labour may abolish the commissioners if they win the next election.
At the end of the evening, with just one result - in Devon and Cornwall - still to come, Labour had 13 commissioners, the Conservatives 15 and independents 12.
The way the elections were conducted - as Paul Davison told me in Bridlington - favoured party candidates over independents.
There were also complaints from Labour - including John Prescott - about the voting system.
He pointed out to me that if his election had been fought on first past the post he would have won.
Well, up to a point, Lord Prescott. Voters wouldn't necessarily have voted the same way under a different voting system.
But it's a fair point, made by many Labour and Conservative activists at the Bridlington count, that voters rejected electoral reform in a referendum last year and here we had these elections fought on a form of proportional representation.
Lord Prescott has always been a strong supporter of first past the post.
But he says he won't now be fighting any more elections, whatever the voting system.
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