DAVID MILIBAND, the environment secretary and protégé of Tony Blair, is being lined up as a possible replacement for John Prescott should the beleaguered deputy prime minister resign.

Downing Street advisers are canvassing the plan, which would allow Prescott to carry on in his elected role as deputy leader of the Labour party, thus avoiding a potentially divisive ballot of party members.

The post of deputy prime minister — a job entirely in Blair’s gift — would give Miliband, 41, a powerful platform to carry the torch of Blairite reform. The plan comes as Labour MPs and ministers are questioning whether Prescott should be left in charge of the country when Blair goes on holiday next month.

Senior cabinet ministers, including Margaret Beckett and Jack Straw, are being touted as stand-ins until the autumn party conference, leaving Miliband to be appointed in the longer term.

Prescott is aware of the Miliband proposal and is said to be angry at the briefing against him this weekend. “He thinks that people around Tony want to kill him off,” said a Downing Street source. “Tony won’t sack him because he knows John could divulge all the secret discussions with Gordon. He will go at a time of his own choosing.”

The Sunday Times has also learnt that Prescott stormed out of Thursday’s cabinet meeting after Blair told him that fellow Hull MP Alan Johnson had been excused so he could attend an anti-slavery event in Hull.

Prescott is under pressure over his links to Philip Anschutz, the US tycoon with business interests in London who entertained the deputy prime minister at his Colorado ranch.

An Anschutz company that owns a stake in the Millennium Dome is threatening to shelve £300m of proposed investment and cancel a Tutankhamun exhibition unless it is granted a licence for a supercasino.

Proposals for a riverside hotel designed by Richard Rogers, an exhibition centre and a 1,800-seat theatre will all be abandoned if the dome does not receive a licence, according to a confidential report by Price Waterhouse Coopers and other official documents. Anschutz’s company AEG said it remained committed to the dome project, but about half the investment would not go ahead if the company failed to win a licence for the casino.

Prescott is believed to have been sent to America last summer with the approval of Blair to “placate” Anschutz amid mounting worries about the dome deal. Prescott is already being investigated by Sir Philip Mawer, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, for failing to report the trip in the register of MPs interests.

It emerged this weekend that Prescott was also entertained by Anschutz when he flew to California in July 2004 and attended a football match, buffet and fireworks display in the billionaire’s corporate box at his Los Angeles stadium.

He is also alleged to have been presented with gifts when he visited Anschutz’s ranch in 2005. According to reports in The Mail on Sunday he received a pair of tooled leather boots, a Stetson hat and a belt with the initials JP on its silver buckle.

A spokeswoman for Prescott refused to comment, saying: “Any gifts received by the deputy prime minister will be declared in the normal way.”

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