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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now Ed Miliband will reportedly kick off a class war at Conference this week by claiming he had a tough time at a north London comprehensive school. One man of course not afraid to call a toff a toff is the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. A very good morning to Lord Prescott there in Hull and let’s start with, if it is to be a class war, is it fertile ground for Labour to attack the Conservatives on their background?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Good morning. I do think there is an issue of class and there are advantages that go for different classes, mainly for those few that get 7% private education, then take 50-60% of the places at the best universities and all the established jobs, that is a fact of life and our education system is reinforcing that so that is inevitably part of our political system. I must admit more people talk about it now than they did when I was talking about it a few years ago.

DM: You certainly were talking about it but you know, as is always pointed out, there is plenty in the high command of the Labour party who were privately educated and who now live in million pound houses.

JP: Well I think you’re probably right and no doubt criticism is made of that but at the end of the day, the central direction, most of these private people go into insurance and banks. Who did the most damage to the economy? Certainly not Tony Blair if that’s what you were suggesting, it was the bankers and the private sector. Now this argument will continue to go but what Ed Balls and indeed Ed Miliband is now trying to say is let us change the power structure, certainly in the banks, certainly in the media, these are the areas where most of these people have dominated in influence.

DM: But you’ve got to be careful, Labour have to be careful, I know you are well aware of it there through the Blair years, but you’ve got to be careful about appearing anti-aspirational haven’t you, as you nuance this message?

JP: Oh for God’s sake, tell all those people, last time the Tories were in, three million unemployed. We’re now on that way to three million unemployed. I see you’ve got Grant Schnapps there, he writes how to get a successful economy. I don't know whether it’s in his name of Malcolm Green. He’s a two tag man. Look, at the end of the day just look who benefits from government policy and if you go back to the Blair years and that period, which I was proud to be among, there were less people unemployed, there were less people in poverty, our schools and our hospitals got the investment. Just walk around all the constituencies. I can’t understand people saying the Blair era was bad, even Sir Len McClusky, I’d say hey Len, more of your people were in work in the areas where we need them, in public services, in education and hospitals, think about it again.

DM: And of course you won three elections on the trot so there was no doubt about Tony Blair’s personality but there are doubts aren’t there, and it is important, about personality with Ed Miliband?

JP: I did have a debate with the T&G at the time when I was trying to get them to support me for the Treasurer and they were so bitter about Tony Blair’s period in office and I had to say to him, just look what it did for you, whether it was done on demand for you. But in those three years you are far better off and he fought and won three elections, tell me another Labour leader that did that, tell me another one that give us minimum wage, tell me another one that got as many people back to work. Come on, grow up.

DM: Tell me about the strategy though before the election, parallels and of course huge differences before 1997 but one of the parallels is that Labour really didn’t need to tell us much about what its policies were going to be in ’95 and ’96 because that John Major administration was imploding. Do you see things turning that way now for Labour and entreaties from people like me to Ed Miliband and others to tell us about your policies don’t need to be answered?

JP: That’s interesting. I’ve been a member of parliament for over fifty years and ten years before that in the trade unions and I have to say I hear these arguments time and time again. Why isn’t Labour specific, right? Of course the Major government was unpopular, I think the Cameron one is facing into the same situation and we were giving alternative policies, let me just say one of them – Tony Blair came out with this, ‘Be tough on crime and tough and the causes of crime’. Everybody laughed at the time, all these clever journalists writing him off, it doesn’t tell us anything, it’s rhetoric. After thirteen years, more police ….

DM: Oh dear, Lord Prescott cut off in his prime and just leading me into the next area, of course he’s trying to stand for one of these positions as elected police commissioner. I think he’s back, hello Lord Prescott. You are back with us, I’m sorry, we just had a slight glitch on the line there and you had moved it very neatly into the area of policing and I wanted to ask you about your campaign to become one of these elected police commissioners.

JP: You missed my central point there.

DM: Well make it in this answer. As you stand for this position, are you worried that it seems to be that most of the public don’t know anything about the elected police commissioners, they don’t know about the campaign, they don’t know when it’s going to be and it’s looking like it’s going to be something like 20% turnout.

JP: We do know when it’s going to be and an impossible and difficult time for turnout, in November, as everybody knows. The government is not giving any information about candidates and withdrawing the money from that, there’s no money coming from the Labour party, no money coming from the Trade Unions either. All the candidates have got to raise what money they can and it is impossible in a first time election to get a good turnout. I hope there will be, there might be if government and indeed the Opposition decide to have three by-elections which are now pending, a fourth now being considered, and forty-odd PCC elections, plus an election for Mayor. If we do that in November then it will be a referendum on this government and I’ll tell you, perhaps you’ll get more than 20% out to vote for that even if they don’t really know now what a police commissioner’s job is.

DM: Okay, once they are established perhaps people will get to know more about it. What do you do if you are elected, Lord Prescott? Do you become a block to overall government strategy, do you try to thwart them in implementing the cuts and restructuring of the police service?

JP: Well just let me say what the government is saying. It is going to reduce the resources by 20% and 15,000 police, that is going back to pre-1997 and inevitably crime will go up and no doubt the government will blame the commissioners so what I will say, the Plan A which the government is community policy and we have to produce a plan within five weeks, is not the one which in my area cuts the police by 400 and does it twice as fast as anywhere else. I say let us look at this properly, we recognise austerity but the people on our front line are our police and not G4S, which this government seems to be advocating.

DM: Ah well that’s the point isn’t it? You accept that we are in an age of austerity and therefore that some cuts have to be made and if you are elected what you would be doing is I suppose a microcosm of what’s happening overall and the argument that’s been put to Labour, what’s would you do in terms of cuts? You can’t stop them all, you can’t restore them all, you have to tell us how far you would go.

JP: Yes, and I think that’s what this plan which each Commissioner has to develop for the government by the Christmas time, will have to show what are the priorities within that expenditure. The expenditure in my area is 180 odd million, they are going to take 30 million out of that. That’s all the voluntary groups and the police side. What you’ve got to get is a very effective operation which Labour brought in, often against the police, of bringing in community policing. Let’s have the partnership of all the groups that are involved in dealing with problems and then you can deal with the crime, causes and effects. If you look at drink, if I look in my area, 40% of violence is created out of drink. On drugs acquisitive crime goes up because the drug levels are going up to feed the habit. Now you’ve got to address yourself to those social problems as well as the criminal ones and that comes together, two sides of the same coin, police and social policy, being strong on crime and strong on the causes of crime, and I’m going to continue that policy.

DM: Okay, it’s always great to talk to you Lord Prescott and we’re nearly out of time but just one last one on this thought we’re hearing from John Cruddas today, thinking on Labour strategy for the next election, what about an EU referendum? What about Labour going for that in the manifesto?

JP: Well I think they are the considerations. We are a couple of years away from a manifesto are we not? I mean the Tories are running in now trying to make other statements about it but it’s like what will you do with taxation, what will you do with … Ed is laying out, he has got a fundamental approach, he’s got the banks and we’ve got what everybody rubbished last year about what you have to do, predatory capitalism, everybody now talks about it. This man is looking and taking time, looking at the serious fundamental issues and spelling out the details and he’s got two or three years to do that and he’s well on the way. He’s not being written off like most of the journalists were doing a few years ago. This is a man here for the long stay, understanding what he’s got to do and the Labour party fully supporting him.

DM: Okay, live from Hull, Lord Prescott, thank you very much indeed for joining us here on Murnaghan.