John Prescott, Britain's longest-serving deputy prime minister who died on Wednesday, was indispensable to Tony Blair's New Labour government, a working-class trailblazer who connected with the public in ways most politicians cannot.

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has passed away at the age of 86 after battling Alzheimer's disease. Tony Blair, under whom Prescott served from 1997 to 2007, led the tributes, praising him as a "loyal and unique" figure in British politics.

The famous "Prescott Punch" is regularly remembered as a defining moment of Labour's 2001 election, with polls finding that a large swathe of the public supported his reaction