John Prescott has said he is "appalled" that a backbench Labour MP has called for Tony Blair to resign.

The deputy prime minister was speaking after former minister Glenda Jackson said it was time for the prime minister to go.

But Jackson has repeated her calls for Blair, spin chief Alastair Campbell and defence secretary Geoff Hoon to resign from the government in the wake of the David Kelly tragedy.

"This tragic human disaster came as a result of the artificial war that had been quite deliberately created in my opinion by Number 10," Jackson told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost.

"We have seen a highly respected, innocent, devoted public servant in my opinion being sacrificed as a result of a quite deliberate political strategy to afford a smoke screen, as someone has called it, for the government."

She added that resignations should be forthcoming "as a duty really towards the country and indeed the Labour Party".

"Bullets should be bitten. This is a desperate, desperate situation."

But speaking to the same programme, Prescott said that Jackson was not aware of all the facts.

"That is why there is an inquiry and that is why I was so appalled when yesterday she was calling for resignations before the facts had been established," he said.

"That is not the way to conduct [yourself] in such serious situations or indeed to give proper respect to Dr Kelly in the tragic circumstances in which he died."