Veteran Labour politician was an analytical thinker who could ask sharp, pertinent questions in a natural way

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Tributes have been piling in for John Prescott, the deputy prime minister from 1997 to 2007, who has died aged 86.

The son of a railway signalman, Prescott was born in Prestatyn, Wales, in 1938 and left school at 15 to work as a trainee chef and then as a steward on the Cunard Line before entering politics.