Prescott: Brown has same 'image projection problem' as Al Gore

The former deputy prime minister, who is touting his memoirs, said the Prime Minister was too 'severe' in the way he presented himself to the public.

'When you see this man with his children, on the floor playing with them, this isn’t a man who hasn’t got a heart, this isn’t a man who doesn’t care or hasn’t got leadership,” he told GMTV today.

'But there is a problem sometimes with image projection. Gore had exactly the same thing — a great man privately but the presentation of the public side was somewhat more severe.'

John Prescott claimed Gordon Brown and Al Gore share a similar 'image problem'

Mr Gore, dubbed 'wooden' by critics, was widely expected to succeed Bill Clinton as president in 2000 but was defeated by George W Bush.

He has since emerged as a climate change campaigner with his documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Mr Prescott also acknowledged the difficult relationship between Mr Brown and Mr Blair, claiming the former prime minister had found his Chancellor 'prickly' and 'frustrating'.

He said he had told Mr Blair: 'If you feel like that, sack him,' and urged Mr Brown: 'If you feel like that, resign.'

The Tories are sure to seize on MrPrescott’s remarks, even though he later described Mr Brown as a 'brilliant' man essential to New Labour’s electoral success.

Addressing Mr Brown’s perception as a dour Scot, Mr Prescott said: 'When you get into an aeroplane do you look to see if the pilot is smiling, or do you just hope he can fly the plane? He is the man who can fly the plane.'

Mr Prescott’s comments came as two key Blairite allies warned that Mr Brown had made major 'strategic errors' in failing to cut taxes and Government waste.

Mr Blair’s speechwriter Phil Collins and former minister Denis MacShane broke cover to launch savage attacks on Mr Brown’s dependence on a large, centralised state apparatus.

Mr Collins, who recently began working for Blairite Cabinet minister James Purnell, said Labour’s future 'looks bleak' because Mr Brown’s faith in central government draws from the 'deep, poisoned well' of the party’s Left-wing history.

Mr MacShane warned that the party’s rhetoric about 'hard-working families' had ignored the needs of millions of single and childless voters in London.

The former Europe minister said voters were rightly angry when they saw the 'insatiable greed of the state ... take the people’s money for its own incompetent
and counter-productive ends'.

He claimed that Labour had only done well when its councils and its Government had delivered tax cuts and curbed spending.

He pointed out that Labour-run Bolton council, which decided not to raise council tax this year, defied the nationwide election meltdown and was re-elected.

In an article for Progress magazine, Mr Collins warned that Tory leader David Cameron and Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg 'have got the point' and are moving away from 'top-down' solutions to Britain’s problems.

'A combination of strategic errors, political mishaps and bad luck has left the party in a vulnerable position,' he wrote.

In the Daily Telegraph, Mr MacShane added that every minister he knew was privately in 'despair at the 'waste of money on pointless projects, publications or legions of press officers'.