Quotes from John Prescott

There was only one punch. Tony Blair rang me and he said 'Are you OK?' and I said 'Yes', and he said 'Well, what happened?' and I said 'I was just carrying out your orders. You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did.

From 1997 when we came in, you guys and the public bought seven million more cars. You didn't get rid of the second car, did you? So what is happening is the growth of cars on the motorway.

Down in the south, it's how we find the brownfield sites without taking too much land take to meet the tremendous demand for housing, and that's what I've done.

If you look at Newcastle or Gateshead, even over twenty years, even with the previous administration, it has moved quite remarkably in transforming itself.

I will have failed in this if in five years there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car. It is a tall order but I want you to hold me to it.

The choice is not normally between the north and south. It might be between Britain and Europe.

Refurbishing I've done in the first three years and I'm still giving housing money, of course, to the north.

You go down some street - no doubt it's there, and we have to do something about it, and our programmes are designed to do that - but if that's a picture of Newcastle, it's not the one I recognise and I bet none in the North East do either.

The only break I ever took was to eat. That's all I did. Work, and then quickly eat something. It became my main pleasure, having access to my comfort food.