Harman dismisses claims that Brown does not want her as deputy

The constitutional affairs minister, tipped as a potential successor to John Prescott, admitted her remarks sounded "horribly self serving".

But she insisted she had been arguing the case for more woman in top government many years.

She told the BBC that Labour needed "a leadership team of men and women".

Asked if she wanted the job for herself, she said: "That's a decision I'll have to make at the time."

Job application?

During an appearance on BBC 2's Daily Politics she also dismissed as "a rumour in the newspaper" that Chancellor Gordon Brown did not want her as his deputy if and when he succeeds Tony Blair.

Commons leader Jack Straw, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain and Education Secretary Alan Johnson have also been named as potential contenders for the post of deputy prime minister.

We need to have a top leadership team of men and women and I'm not going to stop arguing that now just because there is a vacancy Harriet Harman

But Ms Harman says it is a "necessity" that the next incumbent is a woman.

She has been banging the drum for more women Labour MPs and more women ministers for the last 20 years, she said.

"We need to have a top leadership team of men and women and I'm not going to stop arguing that now just because there is a vacancy. I know it looks horribly self serving," she told BBC2's The Daily Politics.

Pressed about her comment that there is a vacancy, she hesitated before adding: "Well, there's a potential double vacancy of the leader and deputy, obviously - everybody knows that.

"But I won't not argue that just because there's going to be a potential vacancy."

'Don't need people being nice'

She said she would have to decide whether she wanted the job when the time came. "But we don't know when that's going to be.

"I don't think that women in the country expect a party who talks about equality and says it's going to deliver for women to actually think that men can be left to get on with it."

Asked about reports that Mr Brown does not want her as his deputy, Ms Harman said: "Well that's just a rumour in the newspaper. We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.