JOHN Prescott faced renewed pressure over his conduct after his former secretary went public with lurid details of their two-year affair.

Tracey Temple's intimate claims about sex in the Deputy Prime Minister's Whitehall Office and his taxpayer-funded flat were published in the Mail on Sunday.

Mr Prescott hit back at his 43-year-old ex-lover - saying much of what she claimed was "simply untrue" and accusing her of spicing up her story to make money from it.

Admitting that he "acted stupidly", he called for privacy while he tried to rebuild his marriage to wife Pauline.

Most political opponents refrained from demanding he quit, but former Tory deputy PM Lord Heseltine said he had brought the Government into "ridicule and contempt".

And a Tory MP stepped up his demands for a standards probe into whether Mr Prescott had broken the ministerial code or abused ministerial perks.

In her extensive interview, Ms Temple claimed the couple had sex in Mr Prescott's grace-and-favour Admiralty House apartment immediately after attending an Iraq war memorial service.

She also said they had sex in a hotel while Mrs Prescott waited downstairs and that sexual encounters took place in his office with the door open while other civil servants worked outside.

The former diary secretary - set to earn a six-figure sum for her story - also claimed she had been "hung out to dry" by her employers.