During John Prescott’s long tenure as deputy prime minister, a post he held for more than a decade, people used to wonder what he did. Now all is revealed. In his memoirs serialised in this newspaper today, we learn that his real job was acting as marriage guidance counsellor in the love-hate relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Mr Prescott brokered “hundreds” of reconciliation meetings and telephone calls between the two, providing a sympathetic ear and occasional good, blunt northern advice.

Mr Brown could be “frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly”, often sulking like a spoilt teenager, but also prone to outbursts in which he would “go off like a bloody volcano”. Mr Blair, who Mr Prescott once called “a little shit”, avoided “full-frontal” confrontations with his rival and several times reneged on his pledge to step down. Mr Prescott advised the prime minister at one stage to sack Mr Brown if he thought his behaviour was unreasonable, and advised the then chancellor to resign if he was fed up with all the broken promises. Despite these playground antics, Mr Prescott insists that more than a decade of close proximity left him with admiration and respect for Labour’s terrible twins. The picture that emerges of Mr Blair, however, is two-faced and slippery, while Mr Brown seems a petulant man driven by frustrated ambition.

The famous “TB-GBs” seem like something from a different and distant political era when a Labour government with no serious opposition had the luxury of engaging in internal battles. Mr Brown must be nostalgic for the days when all he had to worry about was when his Downing Street neighbour would make way for the big clunking fist. As the rows raged on, we were continually told by the new Labour spin machine that it was all dreamt up by journalists with overactive imaginations. Now, as is so often the case - and thanks to Mr Prescott - we know it was all true. They were like ferrets in a sack. We would not have wanted it otherwise.