JOHN PRESCOTT may have been stripped of most of his powers as Deputy Prime Minister but he still enjoys the trappings of high office.

The Deputy Prime Minister can still spend weekends with his wife Pauline at Dorneywood, a grace-and-favour mansion set in 215 acres of National Trust land in Buckinghamshire.

Mr Prescott has also kept his apartment in Admiralty Arch in Whitehall. The residence features prominently in the diaries of Tracey Temple, his assistant diary secretary, with whom he had a two-year affair. Mr Prescott keeps his role at Prime Minister’s questions in the absence of Tony Blair. He also now has to concentrate on his new duties which include maintaining unity among Labour’s MPs and looking at party funding.

The Deputy Prime Minister has been given another responsibility which will hardly be a hardship: China is now part of his official portfolio of duties, a country he has visited eight times since Labour came to power. He will now be able to spend even more time out of the country.

Labour councillors who lost their seats could be forgiven for wishing he had been given the chance to leave sooner.

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