The death of Lord Prescott last month prompted wide and well-deserved tributes, including in The MJ.

John and I did not start well. When I became a minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, as it then was in 2010, we occupied the same building as his former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM) abolished four years before. One of our special advisers, literally finding his way around, came across a cupboard containing, among other things, 20,000 unused ODPM promotional biros, none of which worked. This was too good a press story to waste and I was quoted as saying (slightly-tongue in-cheek) that this symbolised the priorities and competence of the previous administration. John was surprisingly sensitive about this and whenever our paths crossed would mutter about ‘bloody Tory dirty tricks'.