Prescott rages at Sunday Times 'gutter journalism'

DEPUTY prime minister John Prescott launched a violent attack on the Sunday Times yesterday as Labour officials accused the newspaper of having an "obsession" with stories attacking the party.

Mr Prescott believes the Murdoch-owned newspaper is conducting a vendetta against him, following revelations that it sent a reporter to infiltrate his local constituency party.

Allies pointed to new allegations - strongly denied - that Mr Prescott failed to declare a donation from the RMT union as evidence of a campaign against him.

At the same time, respected research organisation the Joseph Rowntree Foundation took the highly unusual step of publishing a front-page advertisement in another newspaper criticising the Sunday Times.

The strongly worded ad in the Financial Times said that unless the foundation received an apology or correction for allegations made last week that it had funded the Labour politician, it would take legal action.

The row raises fresh controversy over the conduct of media organisations owned by Rupert Murdoch, after his publishing company HarperCollins ditched a book by former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten which was critical of China.

Allies of the deputy prime minister seized on comments made yesterday by Sunday Times editor John Witherow that the reporter who went undercover in Hull, Simon Trump, failed to unearth anything newsworthy and nothing was published.

Mr Prescott's friends pointed to an article on 10 August last year, written by Mr Trump and two colleagues, in which Mr Prescott and local government problems in Hull featured.

The deputy prime minister said: "The Sunday Times is still rubbishing in the gutter." He added: "You wonder whether the paper will apologise even when it is shown to be wrong."

Mr Witherow said sections of the article which referred to Hull had not been written by Mr Trump, but by one of the other journalists, Chris Hastings, the then northern correspondent.

The deputy prime minister's allegations were "preposterous," Mr Witherow said.

Mr Prescott's allies attacked reports that he failed to declare a donation from the RMT union in 1996, just before the election. The money went, under Lord Nolan's rules, to his constituency party and did not need to be declared, an aide said.

Hatred in Hull, page 9