Ministers rushed to attempt a papering over of the yawning cracks in the Blair government yesterday as pressure built up on Deputy Prime Minister Prescott to quit.
Criticism of Prescott from Labour MPs and the media had mounted over photos showing him playing croquet at his country retreat while in charge of running the country for the duration of Blair’s Italian holiday.
International Development Secretary Hilary Benn appeared on the BBC Today programme to defend Prescott.
Benn said: ‘I spent yesterday in Downing Street at a meeting that John Prescott chaired looking at what we were doing in response to this earthquake in Yogyakarta, and he then came over the road to thank the different emergency teams.
‘That’s John Prescott at work – a side of him that people don’t always see, the press certainly don’t report, and he was getting on with the job.’
Benn blamed a bank holiday news shortage for the media’s continuing ‘going after’ Prescott.
Former cabinet minister, now European Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, told the programme: ‘All I would say about John is that he is a party man to his fingertips and, whatever he does, he’ll do what’s in the party’s interest I’m sure, not his own.’
Meanwhile, Labour MP Michael Jabez Foster said the Labour Party should be preparing now for a handover not only of the leadership but also the deputy leadership and Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman would be a ‘good choice’ as deputy leader.
Harman had said on Sunday that ‘we have to have a team of men and women in the leadership’ and that it is a ‘necessity’ for the next deputy prime minister to be a woman.
As well as Harman, press speculation about a possible successor to Prescott has included the names of Alan Johnson, Peter Hain, Jack Straw and Tessa Jowell.
Former Labour minister Denis McShane said: ‘We need to renew our Labour Party from the very top to the very bottom and nobody’s job, nobody’s policy is protected.’
Earlier, a Downing Street spokesman had said ‘John has the absolute confidence of the prime minister.’
Officials at Chancellor Brown’s office also defended Prescott, saying Brown ‘recognises he has a role to play and is determined to get through a difficult patch.’
Meanwhile his boss, Blair, has come under fire from both Labour MPs and the Sunday Telegraph over his subservience to US president Bush.
They accused Bush of meddling in the UK’s internal affairs over his remarks at last week’s White House press conference where Bush said of Blair: ‘Don’t count him out.
‘I know a man of resolve and vision and courage and my attitude is I want him to be there so long as I’m the president.’
Hayes and Harlington Labour MP John McDonnell said Blair’s appearance alongside Bush ‘most probably cost the Labour Party another million votes’.
