The government's communications chief, Alastair Campbell, has called for an end to the politics of spin.

Admitting that Downing Street had hung on to the techniques of opposition for "too long", Tony Blair's PR maestro told the Times that spin culture had damaged British politics.

He said that the government's relations with the media were becoming a "dialogue of the deaf".

Campbell admitted that the government had often been "more worried about what kind of press we were going to get than what a policy was going to do over time".

He said the use of spin was developed to protect Tony Blair from the kind of treatment former Labour leader Neil Kinnock received at the hands of the press.

"The story of how we managed the media in the end became something of significance in itself," said Campbell.

"For a while, that was seen as something positive, because the Tories had always had a monopoly on professionalism and presentation. And in opposition all you have is words: you can devise policies but you can't change people's lives."

"But when we came into government, if I were honest about the whole thing, we hung on to some of the techniques and ways of opposition for too long. I don't know if things could have been done differently to prevent the spin thing becoming so huge."

The admission follows two major initiatives which the government hopes will put the emphasis back on parliament and address concerns over excessive government spinning.

Last week it was announced that the Lobby system for briefing reporters will be opened up, with some briefings by ministers being televised.

Number 10 has also said that the prime minister will go before the chairmen of the Commons select committees twice a year to face questioning on a range of issues.

The moves have followed calls by new Labour architect Peter Mandelson for the government to be "more honest".

Earlier this year he called on Tony Blair's government to put the "age of spin" behind it and stop trying to control journalists.

In his interview with the Times, Campbell linked his concerns over spin to public apathy towards politics, admitting that political journalism had become a game where "the victims are the public who don't think it has anything to do with them whatsoever".

"There has to be some common ground about how we can make this process more relevant to people," he said.

Campbell also took the opportunity to call on journalists to moderate their attacks on the government.

"Everything has to be a 'massive scandal' - never a 'minor scandal' - or it has to be the 'worst crisis yet'," he said.

"But the way it is being reported is just aiming off all the time.

"You want to report everything as if it's 100 miles an hour in the fast lane, but most people are living in the middle lane and don't want to go that fast."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Peter Mandelson agreed that changes were needed.

"It is the case that we carried on operating in government rather too much as we were operating in opposition," he said.

"I think it's typical of Alastair's bigness and his insight that he can make an observation like that."