Gordon Brown has been warned that he must back down in the face of a growing revolt over plans to axe childcare vouchers.

The Prime Minister has been urged not to repeat the past mistakes by allowing a political row to develop over the policy.

Every week two thousand parents are signing the Downing Street petition which urges the Prime Minister to change the policy, which will raise the total to more than 80,000 by Friday, and 88 MPs from all parties have supported the Childcare SOS campaign to preserve the voucher scheme.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg warned the Prime Minister to back down now or face another row like the one over Labour plans to axe training budgets for the Territorial Army. At first ministers defended the £20million cuts in training for the Territorial Army, only to reinstate the budget following pressure from the public and Parliament.

Mr Clegg said:

“Gordon Brown is heading up a blind alley by seeking to take away childcare vouchers from thousands of families without doing anything to help them cope with the change.

“The Prime Minister is threatening to leave working parents in the lurch.”

Senior female backbenchers, led by former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, have urged the Prime Minister to change his mind, and his critics have said that Labour is wrong toview the voucher scheme, which can be worth up to £2,390 a year to 340,000 working parents, as a middle class perk.

Mr Brown has claimed the scheme benefits too many high earners, but Government figures confirm 70% of those benefiting from the scheme pay basic rates of income tax.