John Prescott remains the UK’s longest-serving deputy prime minister, a post he occupied throughout the entirety of Tony Blair’s tenure from 1997 to 2007.

The then-Labour MP played a major role in securing the 1997 Kyoto agreement on climate change, which bound industrialised countries to overall cuts of about 5% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, compared with 1990 levels. However, the treaty did not require rapidly developing countries China, India and Brazil to reduce their emissions.

Prescott was seen as a power-broker and counsellor, smoothing over the often strained relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown, and also helped ensure a trouble-free transition from one leader to the other.

His stint at the top of government also saw him praised as the man who helped secure changes in the relationship between Labour and the unions, aided by his union roots.

His working class beginning allowed him to appear more