DEPUTY Prime Minister John Prescott launched an unrestrained attack on proportional representation and coalition government yesterday - but failed to mention specifically the Lib-Lab coalition at Holyrood.
Although Mr Prescott's opposition to PR is well-known, his frank public outburst will do nothing to help Prime Minister Tony Blair cement relations with Charles Kennedy's Liberal Democrats, whom he might have to rely upon if a Labour Government ends up with a small Commons majority.
Speaking on BBC TV's On The Record, Mr Prescott seemed unabashed when he began criticising PR, joking: ''Oh, I'll get myself into a Clare Short situation here in a minute.''
Asked if moves towards PR for Westminster were dead and buried and if he would read them their last rites, he replied: ''Just let it slide away. I mean what I've seen operate wasn't certainly to the advantage of the Labour Party, was it?. . . Put it in a boat and let it slide away Yeah, along with the Lib-Labs.''
Mr Prescott, whose dislike of the third party is well-publicised, went on: ''No, but seriously - 170 majority, new kind of politics, we've said where you could get the coalition and Lib-Lab and proportional representation. I was very strongly against it. I have seen nothing that has occurred since we brought it in to convince me it's in the interest of stable government and, indeed, in the interest of the Labour Party, although I put stable government and the country's interest first.''
Asked if he was in favour of an end to the Lib-Lab Joint Consultative Committee meetings, he pointed out that the innovation had been in the New Labour manifesto in 1997 on which he had fought the General Election.
''I've actually been in a Labour government where in fact there was a kind of semi-coalition if you like under Jim Callaghan because we had a very small majority I'm not sure it was very helpful to us but, nevertheless, we were in it and I was part of not the Government but certainly part of a governing party that had that coalition.''
Later, Rhodri Morgan, First Minister in the Welsh Assembly, run by a minority Labour administration, sought to urge delegates against complacency. ''Perhaps the fuel crisis was the timely kick up the backside that we needed.''
Mr Morgan decried what he called the Tories' ''narrow English skinhead nationalism'' and insisted that it was only Labour that ''embraces the British family: multicultural, diverse in identity, united by Labour values of fairness, tolerance, compassion, democracy and social justice.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article