Brown to stage fightback

However, he had to contend with another round of disclosures about his turbulent relationship with Tony Blair in the form of John Prescott's autobiography, serialised in The Sunday Times.

The former deputy prime minister described Mr Brown as a "frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly" man who could "go off like a bloody volcano".

He revealed that he had at various times urged Mr Blair to sack him as Chancellor and suggested to Mr Brown that he should quit so that he could fight Mr Blair from the backbenches.

"I said to him (Mr Brown) 'If this is how you feel, that you've been misled once again, resign.' I think he thought about it, but it never came to that. He was aware of the possible consequences," he said. "With Tony, when he was moaning on about Gordon's behaviour, I'd say 'Sack him. Find a new Chancellor if that's how you really feel.' But neither could take the final step. They were caught in their own trap."

Mr Prescott's account came hard on the heels of the disclosure by Mr Blair's wife, Cherie, in her autobiography that Mr Blair would have stood down before the 2005 general election if Mr Brown had been prepared to back his plans for city academies and foundation hospitals.

Meanwhile another recent autobiographer, former Labour fundraiser Lord Levy, repeated his claim that Mr Brown must have known about the secret loans from wealthy party backers which led to the "cash for honours" police inquiry.

Aides dismissed the allegation as "complete, unsubstantiated garbage". Mr Brown has always insisted that as Chancellor he was careful to distance himself from party funding matters.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband - tipped as the most likely successor if Mr Brown were to be forced out - defended the Prime Minister, insisting that he did not recognise Mr Prescott's description.

He said that it that the Government now needed to "get on with the job" it was elected to do. "What is fatal in politics is if you forget what you are meant to be doing, which is working on behalf of the people who elected you," he said.