In a newspaper interview on Tuesday, Mr Prescott called for his party to concentrate on substance over rhetoric.

John Prescott on the Today programme

He later told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Labour's concentration on tackling poverty, improving the health services and establishing a minimum wage were such traditional values.

Mr Prescott said: "They are the traditional values in a modern setting, what I'm saying is that perhaps we should emphasis a great deal more."

Mr Prescott made the comments a week after the resignation of arch-moderniser Peter Mandelson, the former trade secretary.

His comments in a newspaper interview appear to have been made with the explicit backing of Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Mr Prescott told Today he had used the interview to "nail the lie that there was a feud between Gordon Brown and John Prescott when all the evidence in the last two years is that they have been working together".

He said the press had concentrated "on the rhetoric of division", particularly hints of a feud between Mr Prescott and Mr Brown.

Gordon Brown: No rift

He said he had worked closely with Mr Brown on major financial changes, including financing the underground and saving the Channel Tunnel rail link.

He said: "I look round the cabinet room and look around the discussions, there is no disagreement about the role and the framework of government,

"It is not the same as is identified as old Labour, the previous Labour government.

"Things have moved on, things are substantially different. We are a modernising government, there is a new Labour government which has produced a radical programme, one we can be really proud of."

Downing Street has said Mr Prescott is in "regular contact" with the prime minister, who is on holiday.

On Tuesday, Commons Leader Margaret Beckett denied that the message being put out by either Mr Prescott or Mr Brown was substantially different to that contained in Prime Minister Tony Blair's New Year address.

She said: "Part of what we have done in this government is to try to bring the British people as a whole together - to emphasise the need for a new kind of partnership."

Blair criticised

Mr Blair's "control freak" tendencies were criticised by MPs on BBC Radio 4's The World At One programme.

Tony Wright, Labour MP for Cannock Chase, who resigned from his junior post as a ministerial aide, urged the premier to relax.

He said: "It is important to distinguish between honest debate and silly criticism.

"A sign of new politics is that you can engage in open debate particularly among friends without it being seen as disloyalty.

"I hope new politics actually builds some of that in too. It has to have room for a few free thinkers and even the odd maverick."

Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, told the programme there was "an insecurity at the heart of government".