JOHN PRESCOTT

Perhaps they thought I was on a fact-finding mission, never for one moment thinking that a man of my age and build could be suffering from bulimia nervosa, but that's what the consultant said I had.

It's moving in the right direction. It was in decline under the previous administration.

From 1997 when we came in, you guys and the public bought seven million more cars. You didn't get rid of the second car, did you? So what is happening is the growth of cars on the motorway.

There was only one punch. Tony Blair rang me and he said 'Are you OK?' and I said 'Yes', and he said 'Well, what happened?' and I said 'I was just carrying out your orders. You told us to connect with the electorate, so I did.

I was the one that brought it in, but not only for the north-east, for every area so we can develop all the regional economies, lift up the national productivity, get greater wealth and share it more evenly.

The choice is not normally between the north and south. It might be between Britain and Europe.

We've given more resources. On housing, we are now establishing a regional housing pot.

We are making the fundamental changes. It was like the decent housing target. We said by 2010, we'd have taken a million houses and refurbished them into decent housing.

What government has been doing, we've got major programmes now, of billions of pounds, which are directed by central government into these areas of deprivation.

Refurbishing I've done in the first three years and I'm still giving housing money, of course, to the north.

Why can't we, with a more intelligent policy, actually have houses that are affordable, built at higher densities than they are at the moment and built on brownfield sites.

That's what I think regions are about, making central government more accountable and fairer.

You go down some street - no doubt it's there, and we have to do something about it, and our programmes are designed to do that - but if that's a picture of Newcastle, it's not the one I recognise and I bet none in the North East do either.

I have only been seeking to get them to the negotiating table and, thank God, that's where they are.

We believe the 36, nearly 40, billion pound discount given for a right to buy houses took a million houses out of the public housing sector which is desperately needed for rent.

In a sense, what we do with the regional development agencies is to give them resources to look at the deficiencies in the economy in the regional areas, so they can address themselves to that.

In the north east, there, they have had quite a bit of government offices moving in. It's not a new policy.

I'm going to introduce you to a revolutionary thought - you can go slower and get there quicker. And that's to do with flow. As soon as you made it two lanes and brought in the 70 (mph) and 50 (mph), you got there quicker. It meant the flow of the traffic was better, there were less accidents, less deaths, I think that's an important factor.

All I could feel was this warm liquid running down my neck. You automatically think it's blood, it's all in split seconds, so I decided to say I didn't agree with him.

I've gone through that with my mother and father and here I was in a similar situation. I've wronged her and I've wronged the family. Because when these things happen, it doesn't just happen to you, it happens to the people around you and the family.

If you look at Newcastle or Gateshead, even over twenty years, even with the previous administration, it has moved quite remarkably in transforming itself.

The only break I ever took was to eat. That's all I did. Work, and then quickly eat something. It became my main pleasure, having access to my comfort food.

There is progress taking place, growth is better. We're only talking about two years there.

I see this fella built like a barn door... and there's all these fox hunters, who didn't like me, screaming and shouting and as I walked past him I looked at him and he hit me with something.

So what I did was stuff my face with anything around, any old rubbish, burgers, chocolate, crisps, fish and chips, loads of it, till I felt sick - but at least I'd had the pleasure of stuffing my face and feeling really full.