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PARLIAMENTARY visit ... Rochdale’s Labour parliamentary candidate meets former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
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Prescott takes a break to cast an eye over ‘vigorous’ town
Katie Storey19/ 7/2008
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott took a break from filming his new BBC2 documentary to find out about Rochdale.
Mr Prescott’s current documentary focuses on the British class system and he will be taking to the streets of the town to find out the dreams and aspirations of local people.
Despite Rochdale’s status as one of the 50 most deprived areas in England, Mr Prescott said he has not set out with pre-conceived ideas and will be reserving judgement until the end of the documentary.
He said: "Rochdale is like a lot of North West towns – it’s vigorous, it’s got a very good population. Sure, it has its share of economic and social problems and Labour have been addressing that for the last 10 years.
"I’m pretty well versed in deprivation. In fact in the past 10 years Labour has relieved quiet a lot of it.
"The point of the programme is to find out if there is still class in Britain today and certainly there is.
"There are those that have it and those that don’t have it, we’re just looking on that programme whether there is much social mobility and obviously that is a problem."
Mr Prescott described the development of the North West as ‘quite exciting’ and was certain Rochdale, with Kingsway Business Park, was creating opportunities.
He said: "I know what we’ve done in our area and I know what we’ve done everywhere else, there has been a tremendous development by the Regional Development Agencies.
"When Labour decides there will be 3,000 SureStarts throughout the North West Rochdale will get its share, when Labour says there will be new primary health centres Rochdale will get its share, all those things have been brought together and planned by departments working with local authorities."
But despite over a decade of a Labour government, Mr Prescott said that the electorate shouldn’t be taken for granted and the Rochdale Labour party ‘must work hard’ to take control locally.
Mr Prescott commented: "There are two things that make a party successful, the politics of organisation and the politics of ideas.
"Do not take the electorate for granted. Give them a damn good case to vote."
But Mr Prescott was criticised by Lib Dem MP Paul Rowen, who said he should have shown more concern for workers’ rights by making a visit to the council picket line while in Rochdale on the second day of the industrial strike.
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20/07/2008 at 02:30
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