- guardian.co.uk, Saturday November 6 2004 01.57 GMT
Few people could fault John Prescott for his effort. Even opposition politicians grudgingly admire the stamina of the deputy prime minister. He has pounded the north-east for the past month, microphone in hand, for a project which has consumed much of his political life.
"An assiduous and hard-working campaigner," noted his ever-loyal regions minister, Nick Raynsford, who has mastered every legislative detail of referendum acts and draft bills for proposed elected assemblies. "He's put his heart into this. John is a very resilient man and he is going to bounce back I am sure."
The man himself looked deflated, and tired, at a news conference at 2am yesterday in a lecture theatre at Sunderland University, a few hundred metres from the regional counting centre. He managed a few jokes, one of them about his age - a year past the official retirement date.
He was asked if his appetite for politics was now so diminished that he might consider standing down from parliament? "Naw. What would you guys do without me?"
How did he feel to lose so badly? "I have a strong view about regional assemblies, but the people have spoken. It's their choice. It was a manifesto commitment. I might be disappointed [but] the people have spoken and I recognise that. It's an emphatic defeat."
A missed opportunity for the region? "I think so ... the electorate felt comfortable with a Labour government that has cut unemployment by half in this area ... that came across often and I think that led them to feel 'why another tier of government?' They didn't feel threatened like they did under a Tory government."
When asked how it felt to have his "personal dream" shattered, he repeated: "People feel comfortable ... increasing prosperity over seven years ..." But, yes, they also mistrusted the political class and did not want "more expensive politicians running the system".
But when questioned about the absence of substantial powers for a proposed assembly - which would have broadly overseen economic development, strategic planning and housing and, maybe, transport - he talked about striking a "balance" between Whitehall and the region. In other words, he had wrung as much out of cabinet colleagues as he could, imperfect as that might have been.
The past year has not been easy for the deputy prime minister. Many of his colleagues had no interest in his regional project. They offered him little or no support. A few were privately hostile. Downing Street, said to be "stunned" by the result, was distinctly cool.
When the BBC's Question Time was screened from Gateshead recently, the solicitor general, Harriet Harman QC, did not appear to understand the function, or purpose of a proposed assembly. Her rambling, hesitant, reply to one devolution question outraged Prescott supporters. "It sent out all the wrong messages," said one.
Worse for Mr Prescott, few north-east MPs - there is only one Tory in the region - were prepared to put their reputations on the line by campaigning for a yes vote. One of the few who did - the Darlington MP Alan Milburn, now back in the cabinet as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - saw his constituents reject devolution by a 6-1 margin.
One north-east business leader recalled a meeting he had with Mr Prescott this year when the question of powers cropped up. "He said he'd got as much as he could from colleagues - done as much as he could - and couldn't get any more."
With Mr Prescott facing what many will see as a political crisis of his own making, the prime minister will also be asking what went wrong in his adopted region. Even in Sedgefield, the troops are unhappy.
