Bollocks to grammar

Like George Bush - and it is probably the only thing about him that is like George Bush - Mr Prescott loses much of his tendency for sentence-mangling when on comfortable turf, outside the capital and away from the national media spotlight. (Access to the Prescott Express tour is almost exclusively confined to local and regional outlets.)

He claims not to mind being portrayed as a figure of fun, but his tone of voice betrays him.

“A lot of them are arrogant snobs who went to public school,” he says. “They say ‘Ooh, you got your grammar wrong.’ Well, at my school they didn’t teach much grammar. I talk fast. You say one word instead of another. So bloody what? So bloody what?”