Prescott

Now I'm sure there will be a lot of agreement with me that John Prescott has outlived his useful life as a member of this government, at least looking at the Telegraph letters pages. For one thing, I will stick up for him: the Labour party completely support him when he punches a journalist, but criticise him beyond reason just because he plays croquet. Is this just a class thing? Surely he is allowed, on a Bank Holiday, to entertain himself and some friends at "home", even if El Presidente is out of the country and he is in control? On that, I have no criticism.

However, on the wider issue of why he has still got his job, the following persuasive arguments have been put forward:

• He is the only link that the government have got back to the Labour party - very few of the government ministers appear to actually be socialists (Bevan, Callaghan, McDonald, Wilson et al must be turning in their graves).
  
• He deflects from the mess that others in the government are making by being essentially a figure of fun.
  
• He acts as a buffer of some sort between Blair and Brown.
  
• He knows something about Brown and Blair that he is holding over them (he hinted at this yesterday apparently) - some sort of blackmail?
  
• He is in cahoots with Blair to ensure that the government and country are in complete turmoil for Brown to take over - to ensure he cannot make a success of it.
  
• Blair is too weak to sack him.
  
• Blair can't be bothered to sack him as he's going soon anyway.
  
• Blair wants to make sure that when Brown takes over, he's still got Prescott in place.
  
• He has got powerful friends among the backers of the party.
  
• He's good at what he does.
  

OK< I made the last one up.