Health Minister Ivan Lewis said that voters were becoming increasingly cynical about politicians who were not prepared to admit their errors.

At the same time, after Labour's drubbing in the local council elections, he said that the party needed to regain its discipline and focus on the issues that really mattered to the public.

"It is important in a world where politicians are mistrusted that we say that we made mistakes, not just Gordon's made mistakes, frankly, ministers have made mistakes and there are some backbenchers who have lost the focus of the public's everyday issues," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"The message really is to Team Labour at Westminster, we've made some mistakes, let's acknowledge that, but let's get on with demonstrating that we can successfully take families and the country through what is a very difficult economic period."

Mr Lewis - the MP for Bury South where the council was taken by the Tories in the local elections - acknowledged that Mr Brown had admitted mistakes, particularly over the scrapping of the 10p rate of tax.

He said that the Government now needed to get back to dealing with the public's day-to-day concerns.

"The obvious thing is that we have had a bad few months and we have made some mistakes.

"But now the challenge is for us to unite, to be disciplined and focus on the everyday issues and realities that affect the people of this country," he said.