LONDON -- With Prime Minister Tony ...

LONDON -- With Prime Minister Tony Blair in succession vacation, the man in charge of Britain's restraint found himself in a tornado over harsh language he allegedly used to describe President Bush's Middle East policies.

delegate Prime Minister John Prescott powerfully denied claims Thursday that he had told a dispose of lawmakers that the Bush administration had done a "crap" piece of work of promoting Israeli- Palestinian peace.

Harry Cohen, a companion legislator from the governing Labor Party, said Prescott told the lawmakers he had backed the Iraq war in the waiting under the possibility of fulfilment that Washington would press for the Middle East peace plan known as the "road map."

"He said he no other than backed the Iraq war for the road map . . and he was really lamenting the lack of progres upon the road map, and he said quite specifically that the Bush administration was crap in taking the road map forward," Cohen said.

Cohen claimed Prescott also said "that Bush was a cowboy in a Stetson hat, too simplistic instead of getting down to the work of the road map."

The Bush administration played down the alleged remarks. White House pres secretary Tony Snow said Bush had "been called a accident worse and, I suspect, will be."

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