Blair allies dismiss spin claim

Friends of Tony Blair today dismissed claims that his domestic crisis had been made public as part of a slick spin campaign to boost his image.

Some MPs, including allies of Gordon Brown, suspected the revelation was designed to win sympathy for Mr Blair.

Senior allies of the Prime Minister rejected the notion as "garbage" and made clear the Labour peer and broadcaster's comments were an off-the-cuff, ham-fisted attempt to explain the pressure Mr Blair had suffered in recent months.

"To say this is part of some orchestrated campaign is total garbage. The first anyone knew of what he was going to say was when it came on the news," a source said. Lord Bragg is a long-standing associate of Mr Blair and his wife Cate Haste has co-written a new book with Cherie Blair about life in No10, The Goldfish Bowl.

It was this closeness to the Blairs that gave his comments such weight yesterday and triggered renewed speculation about a possible deal to hand over power to the Chancellor.

But senior Government sources were stressing today that Lord Bragg had himself admitted in his TV interview he was "no expert on the private life of Tony Blair".

Peter Mandelson, Britain's European commissioner, played down the idea that family pressures had been so severe that Mr Blair was on the verge of resigning. "I'm probably as close to the Prime Minister and his family as anyone in political life in this country and it's certainly news to me," he said.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman insisted Downing Street had been "surprised" by the remarks, saying: "What Lord Bragg said is a matter for Lord Bragg, not for us."

Speculation about a handover deal with Mr Brown was rife at Westminster amid fresh claims that the Prime Minister had told his Chancellor last November he would quit in a year's time, and that - shocked by pictures coming out of Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and under family pressure at home - he had had to be dissuaded from pre- announcing his departure last May.

Mrs Blair today underlined the domestic pressures of living in Downing Street. In an extract from her book, she said: "Living in No10 can impose unique stresses on families."