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Prescott 'won't resign'
06/07/2006 14:46 - (SA)
London - Britain's deputy prime minister said on Thursday he intends to keep his job despite conflict-of-interest allegations for accepting the hospitality of a US billionaire who is seeking to open a big gambling casino in London.
"I will get on with doing my job and I am not leaving it, I am getting on with it," John Prescott said.
Prescott's office said on Wednesday he had not acted improperly, but had agreed to record his stay with Philip Anschutz in the official record of lawmakers' financial dealings, the register of members' Interests.
Aides said there had been no impropriety in accepting hospitality from Anschutz, an oil and media mogul who bought London's Millennium Dome in 2002 and hopes open a large casino there.
Donation to charity
They said Anschutz - whose worth is estimated by Forbes magazine at $6.4bn - had refused to be paid for Prescott's stay, but that the deputy prime minister had made a donation to charity to cover the cost of the stay.
The position of Prescott, a former ship's steward and union official who has served as Prime Minister Tony Blair's link to old-line Labour Party activists, has been in question ever since he admitted in May he had had an affair with a civil servant in his office.
"I am very sorry for what has happened. I do believe in a way it's not been good for my party or government. Of course I am conscious of that," Prescott said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
- AP
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