Working Class?

When "New Labour" was elected to govern the country in 1997 I always thought that John Prescott was put in as Deputy Prime Minister as a sop to the "Old Labour" stalwarts to keep them on board. Here was a straight-talking, rough-sounding man who called a spade a f***ing shovel. An ex-docker who believed in the working class so much that he became a trade union official and then stood for Parliament under the banner of Labour - the workers' party. All for the worker and there to keep the toffee-nosed Blair and his privately-educated buddies on the straight and narrow of looking after the "working class".
His way of cocking-up interviews - "Can we take that again?" in a live interview. His way of making his point by punching a protester on the nose. Those things endeared us to him - or otherwise. He was put in charge of all sorts of things with wide ranging powers - at least in the eyes of those who were not in the know behind the scenes.
It seems that he was just a puppet after all. And only human after all. Far from being the champion of the worker he defected to "the other side" tout-de-suite!
Two gas-guzzling Jaguars complete with chauffeurs, grace-and-favour homes of stately proportions and a salary that would make most working-class people think they'd gone to heaven. All this, of course, paid for by the hard-working taxpayer.
I admit that I would probably have succumbed in the same way - the temptation is too great. But I don't claim such high moral values - I just want to survive, that's all I can aspire to.
Many people think he's a traitor to the cause. I just think that he's been used and now, it seems, he's outlived his purpose. So now the guns are out against him.
I wonder how much of the present media antagonism is engineered from the higher echelons of the "New Labour" party? It helps to divert attention away from the more important questions besetting the Government.
Like: When will Blair step down and who will succeed him?
Or: How has the Home Office got in such a mess (and how much of this is really the Tories' fault but hasn't yet been sorted out by the present regime)?
Or the many other grievances that come to mind which the Government needs to sort out pronto.
Not least: "Why the bloody hell did we agree to be George W's puppets and put soldiers into Iraq?"
Nuff said.