Chinese culture venerates the wisdom of the aged, that must be why they made John Prescott a Professor of Climate Change at a Xiamen University.  It surely can’t be for his grasp of thermo-dynamics or theoretical climatology.  All the honours and flattery have secured his services as a Sino-apologist, a role in which he follows in the footsteps of Ted Heath, who combined his latter years of sulking with making excuses for the Chinese, greatly enriching himself in the process.

Guido has no idea what the terms of his honourary position are, so far he has only declared copious hospitality from the Chinese regime.  This has seemingly secured his trademark one-sided campaigning belligerence on their behalf in return.  You would have thought China’s blocking of a deal in Copenhagen would have soured Professor Prezza the climate change campaigner’s relationship with the Chinese.  Not a bit, he even wrote a letter to the Guardian loyally pointing out that the Copenhagen Conference failing  was all America’s fault, despite NGOs and EU negotiators squarely blaming China.  Guido will bet that a letter to the Guardian has never before been reported favourably in the Chinese People’s Daily…

This morning a British citizen was executed by the Chinese.  David Miliband had led an international campaign to get the sentence commuted, even Gordon Brown pleaded for clemency.  So did John Prescott use his campaigning skills and contacts at the highest level of the Chinese regime to intervene? 

No, not a tweet was heard from him…

UPDATE : Prezza managed to mess up a Chinese wedding. Have a laugh watching the wedding video here.  At least he didn’t grope a bridesmaid…