He was always a polymath. Politician, street-fighter, and sometime cultural critic: former deputy prime minister John "Two Jags" Prescott can turn his hand to anything. Quite literally, as a Cardiff egg-thrower found to his cost in 2001.
But Prezza's latest reinvention still doesn't seem any less weird a week or so in. Appearing alongside comedian Omid Djalili in an advert for insurance website moneysupermarket.com, Lord Prescott of Kingston upon Hull is the latest – and most unexpected – big name to enter the glamorous world of celebrity endorsements.The 30-second advert, which opens with Prezza thumping a punchbag to the soundtrack of Rocky's Eye of the Tiger, gently ribs Prescott for both his pugilistic instincts, and his love of fast cars. "What's the matter this time, bruiser?" Djalili asks the breathless peer. "You trying to be funny, lad?" Two Jags shoots back. But Djalili, undeterred, cuts to the chase: "It's time to renew the insurance on your cars again, isn't it?" he observes, ever intuitive. "Both of them." They're like a modern-day Morecambe and Wise.
Prezza is in interesting company. His predecessors in the long-running advert series include both the Formula 1 star Nigel Mansell and the hapless X Factor duo Jedward.
Surprisingly, though, he is not the first politician to grace our ad-breaks. Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger once endorsed the Economist, while Clement Freud – in the days before he was both a Liberal MP and a bastion of Radio 4's Just a Minute – was filmed alongside his bloodhound Henry to advertise the merits of Chunky Meat dog food.
