Blair's deputy PM in hot water for meeting US casino tycoon

The revelation Tuesday prompted the threat of an investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog just weeks before Prescott takes over responsibility for running the country while Prime Minister Tony Blair goes on holiday.

Blair's office was forced to declare that the British leader retained "full confidence" in his deputy.

The furore emerged after Prescott wrote to the main opposition Conservatives to confirm that his meetings with Philip Anschutz took place over a three-year period, culminating in a visit to the tycoon's Colorado ranch last July.

But he strongly denied that they had discussed the sale of the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, southeast London -- acquired by the Anschutz Entertainment Group in 2002 -- or the award of casino licences.

"I can categorically confirm that no discussion took place about the sale of the Dome -- indeed contracts had been signed three years earlier -- nor about the awarding of regional casino licences," Prescott said in the letter to Hugo Swire, the Conservative spokesman for culture.

Swire, however, was unimpressed by Prescott's comments, telling BBC radio there was a "bad smell around all this".

He said: "Why on earth did the deputy prime minister, the second most powerful political figure in the land, have seven meetings with somebody who wants to bid for the only slot available for a regional casino?"

Upping the pressure, parliamentary standards commissioner Philip Mawer said he was considering a complaint from Swire that Prescott failed to declare the stay at Anschutz's ranch in the register of interests of members of parliament.

Prescott, second in command to Blair since the Labour Party came to power nine years ago, was mired in controversy in April when he owned up to an extramarital affair with a secretary 24 years his junior.