BRITAIN: British prime minister Tony Blair marks his ninth year in office today amid reports of a backbench Labour plot to force the pace of the expected eventual transition to a Gordon Brown leadership.
There was little to celebrate in 10 Downing Street yesterday as deputy prime minister John Prescott and home secretary Charles Clarke clung to office, while opinion polls demanded that their heads, along with that of health secretary Patricia Hewitt, should roll.
The Conservatives cast Mr Prescott's affair with a former secretary and the fiasco over foreign prisoner releases as a combination of "Whitehall farce" and "national tragedy." And the mood of gloom was set to continue with Labour braced for heavier than expected losses now in Thursday's local elections, after which Mr Blair is due to reshuffle his cabinet in an attempt to reassert his political authority.
In advance of yesterday's Mail on Sunday publication of Tracey Temple's account of her affair with Mr Prescott, Number 10 denied that the deputy prime minister was "considering his position", signalling Mr Blair's determination that his deputy should not be forced out.
Mr Prescott showed no signs of quitting. Instead, he came out fighting with a statement dismissing some of his former lover's claims as "simply untrue" and "motivated by a desire to maximise financial gain", while threatening to take his media tormentors to the Press Complaints Commission.
However, former Conservative deputy prime minister Lord (Michael) Heseltine waded into the controversy, suggesting Mr Prescott was bringing the government "into ridicule and contempt."
While personal affairs apparently seldom influence political allegiances or voting preferences, Lord Heseltine's comments seemed to chime with the public mood, with 52 per cent of respondents to a YouGov survey saying Mr Prescott was "a buffoon" who "should never have had high office."
Publicist Max Clifford confirmed Ms Temple could expect to receive well in excess of £100,00 for her story, in which she claimed she and Mr Prescott had sex in his unlocked Whitehall office immediately after he took her to an Iraq war memorial attended by Queen Elizabeth, and in a hotel before joining his wife Pauline, who was with them on an official trip, for dinner.
Lord Heseltine told Sunday Live on Sky News: "It is legitimate to say that a private affair is private, but we are not talking about the affair, we are talking about the behaviour of the deputy prime minister.
"You simply cannot have a senior member of a government bringing that government into ridicule and contempt by the way in which that person behaves." That was what had happened, said Lord Heseltine, who claimed "the real problem" for the government was Mr Blair's own "lack of grip and judgment."
Mr Blair, meanwhile, conceded he might yet be forced to sack Mr Clarke as the hunt continued for 80 of the most serious offenders among the 1,023 foreign prisoners released from prison over a six year period without being considered for deportation.
Asked if Mr Clarke's position would change if one of those prisoners committed a serious offence, Mr Blair told the News of the World: "I don't think I'm going to speculate. It depends on what happens, what the reasons are."
This confirmation that Mr Clarke remained at "the mercy of events" came as the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Alistair Graham, said the allegations against Mr Prescott "would seem prima facie to raise an issue about conduct."
Following a Sunday Telegraph report that Labour rebels are contemplating a leadership challenge to try to force Mr Blair to publish a timetable for his departure within 12 months, transport secretary Alistair Darling told the BBC's AM programme Mr Blair and Mr Brown would need to "at some stage, reach an agreement as to how these things are arranged."