Sunday, August 20, 2006
Like Father, Like Son? - The Prescott Dynasty?
The Sunday Times reports here on yet another Prescott story. It appears that John Prescott's son Jotnathan runs or owns a firm that specialises in finding sites for development.
According to the article, payment is by commission, both on a sale/purchase and further payments made if planning is obtained. The article doesn't tells us the company (Estate Partnerships) has been running for 17 months so it doesn't seem to be a career pre-dating Prescott Senior's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister. In any event, it is certain that Prescott Junior has been pursuing this line of business at a time when his father's department was directly responsible for planning matters.
Whilst there is no suggestion of any illegality or improper behaviour calls have been made for the details of deals Prescott junior has been involved with to be made public. Incredibly (from the article): "Prescott Jr told The Sunday Times on Friday that he “wouldn’t know” if any of these schemes ended up on his father’s desk." I find that very difficult to believe, even if nothing untoward or improper has occurred, surely Prescott junior kept a track of what was happening with any planning process even for no other reason than to make sure he got his proper fee?
Anyway we shall have to wait and see, but I think I'm safe in saying that no matter what (if anything) has happened we won't see Prescott Senior resign.
According to the article, payment is by commission, both on a sale/purchase and further payments made if planning is obtained. The article doesn't tells us the company (Estate Partnerships) has been running for 17 months so it doesn't seem to be a career pre-dating Prescott Senior's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister. In any event, it is certain that Prescott Junior has been pursuing this line of business at a time when his father's department was directly responsible for planning matters.
Whilst there is no suggestion of any illegality or improper behaviour calls have been made for the details of deals Prescott junior has been involved with to be made public. Incredibly (from the article): "Prescott Jr told The Sunday Times on Friday that he “wouldn’t know” if any of these schemes ended up on his father’s desk." I find that very difficult to believe, even if nothing untoward or improper has occurred, surely Prescott junior kept a track of what was happening with any planning process even for no other reason than to make sure he got his proper fee?
Anyway we shall have to wait and see, but I think I'm safe in saying that no matter what (if anything) has happened we won't see Prescott Senior resign.
Tags: John Prescott, Prescott, propriety in pubclic life
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
