No.392 Of Tony, Charles and John Prescott

I said I'd read five books this year on leadership. I'm book four at the moment Tony Blair's "A Journey".

There's a beautiful part of the book where he describes his relationship with the lovable rogue and great Northern working class maverick John Prescott. It goes like this :

"I bumped into Prince Charles who told me he had had a meeting with John Prescott recently.
"Ah," I said, how did it go?
"Fine, fine" Prince Charles replied with a somewhat distracted air, "except...."
"Yes?" I said encouragingly, knowing some Johnism was about to emerge.
"Well", he said, looking round to see we were undisturbed, "does he ever do that thing with you?
"What thing"? I said.
"Er, well when he's sitting opposite you, he slides down the seat with his legs apart, his crotch pointing a little menacingly, and balances this teacup and saucer on his tummy. It's very odd."
I've never seen someone do that before. What do you think it means?"
"I don't really think it means anything really, I said
"Hmm. You don't think its a sort of gesture or sign of hostility or class enmity or something?
No" I said "he does that often with me"
"You mean" I interjected "he's making a working-class point against you, upper class and me middle class?"
"Well it could be" he said
"No, I think he just likes drinking his tea that way"
"Yes you're probably right" he said, plainly puzzled and unpersuaded, it's just I've never seen it done before.