21 AUGUST 2004, Page 24

Don't sneer at Mr Prescott: physical courage is rare among politicians

Mr Prescott. though 66, is probably the only Cabinet minister capable, as he showed in North Wales last weekend, of rescuing a concussed canoeist from the rapids. Mr Prescott is a diver and an excellent swimmer. But they were not the only reasons why he was able to do what he did. There is also his physical bravery.

Physical bravery is not essential to a senior politician, especially since most politicians only become senior at an age when that quality is long unused, waning, unnecessary for the job, or was not there in the first place. We can have no doubt that, had the Germans reached London, Churchill would have died shooting at them in Whitehall's ruins or would have wished to do so. But it never came to that. Perhaps the only prime minister directly to show physical bravery in office was Sir Edward Heath. Physical bravery must be needed by anyone captaining in middle age, as he did, ocean-going yachts in important races on turbulent seas.

It is not, however, essential to the office. A.J.P. Taylor wrote that Lloyd George was a physical coward about Zeppelin raids in the first world war; he was first to suggest the shelter. Yet Lloyd George is often said to have been a brave politician. We must grant that he was brave in his opposition to the Boer war — the country's most unpopular cause when he embraced it. It is less clear that he was brave as a first world war prime minister. There was less navy opposition to his introduction of merchant convoys than he later pretended, and no one has been able to prove that he made a decisive contribution to victory on the Western Front in 1918.

Harold Macmillan, in his diaries, accused Herbert Morrison — under whom he served at the wartime Ministry of Supply — of being cowardly about air raids too; another first-to-the-shelter man, apparently. Whatever the truth of that — and Macmillan makes it clear that he despised Morrison on all grounds, not just this one — Morrison was, for good or ill, one of the century's most influential British politicians. He made the London County Council a mighty force. For a generation, the Conservatives did not dare undo his nationalisations, which lasted until Mrs Thatcher. Some people, not least in the once-Tory middle classes, still have

a pang of affection for some of them, especially in the matter of the railways.

So, perhaps, when we consider courage in an important politician, we should always have in mind political courage. Not that, in any age, there is ever much of that either; recklessness being much more likely to be found among them, masquerading as courage. Still, we should admire what Mr Prescott did last weekend. That punch from him, in the last election campaign, should also be admired. The yobbo may only have thrown an egg, but Mr Prescott was not to know it was only that. An egg, thrown at such close quarters, must have stung. Mr Prescott must have feared that something worse was happening. Yet he did not run away. He stood and punched.

Mr Blair's behaviour, concerning the incident, was more ambiguous. The evidence is circumstantial and what sociologists call 'anecdotal'. Some of us saw the punch on CNN or BBC News 24. With much interest, we awaited Mr Blair's opinion. Questioned on the campaign trail, he did not give Mr Prescott unequivocal support. He implied that he needed more information about the incident. Reporters with his campaign began to say that the Blair apparat was worried that Mr Prescott might have embarrassed the Prime Minister, by which they meant done something unpopular with middle-class voters.

The Blair camp, then, seemed to think that someone could become unpopular with the middle class by punching an aggressive yobbo. Soon members of that class started to be interviewed on television. An elderly man of military bearing — of the sort once forming the backbone of local Conservative associations — said that Mr Prescott had been 'sorely provoked'. This became the broad theme among interviewees. Soon Mr Blair was before the cameras, giving Mr Prescott his full support.

So Mr Prescott has now proved twice that physically he is something of a hero. Concerning last weekend: Mr Prescott and his security people had gone to view the river. A canoe capsized and the canoeist was in the rushing waters, having gashed his forehead. To make his situation even worse, the waters threw a raft on top of him The canoeist was concussed. Mr Prescott and a Special Branch officer rushed to the bank, took hold of the man and dragged him to safety; quite a feat since he weighed between 14 and 16 stone, it was said. Mr Prescott later told the press, 'It was a team effort.'

It must have been a baffling, as well as frightening, experience for the canoeist. For one thing, there was probably an initial difficulty with language. 'Aye, lad, we've got you t'dry land, but we think you might be suffering from percussion. They may have to rush you to Insensitive Care.' But the country has long known how to do its own simultaneous translations of Mr Prescott. His way with words seems only to make him more popular.

The press did not observe the incident. One or two newspapers, which disapprove of Mr Prescott, gleefully pointed out that a press officer in his office had suggested that they ask him about 'the rescue'. Mr Prescott later spoke to certain reporters in some detail.

Presumably we were meant to think the less of him for that. But he is a politician, not a modest member of the rescue services. More: he is a politician who has been much spun against and who must survive in the age of spin; where 'celebrities', genuine or not, privately regale newspaper reporters with descriptions of their qualities, or arrange for those anonymous 'friends' — often public-relations people — to do so on their behalf.

In any case, which other senior politician could we imagine doing something similar to what Mr Prescott did? 'Peter Mandelson, in the middle of a drinks party at a rightwing newspaper proprietor's mansion, saved a New Labour columnist from having to drink red wine that was not appellation controlee, and might even have not been French premier cru at all, but Argentinian. "The stuff engulfed several glasses on a waiter's tray," Mr Mandelson said. "With the help of my new Brussels chef de cabinet, we were just able to dash it from his hand, and pull him to safety. It was a team effort." ' But there are few Prescotts or Mandelsons.