'Blair offered to hand over to Brown'

Tony Blair offered an extraordinary deal to hand power to Gordon Brown in return for his recommendation that Britain join the euro, it was claimed today.

It is contained in the memoirs of Clare Short, the former Cabinet minister who quit over Iraq. Her book is the first by a Cabinet member to address in detail the rumours about Mr Blair's retirement plans and his relationship with Mr Brown.

It includes her recollections of direct private conversations with both men. She says that Mr Brown dismissed Mr Blair's alleged offer out of hand.

Ms Short paints a picture of searing tensions between the pair. She says Mr Brown complainedof being "sick of fighting-against bad proposals by Downing Street". During the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Mr Brown told her he feared Mr Blair would try to oust him from the Treasury in a snap reshuffle after the war.

He made clear he would resign from the Government rather than be shifted from his power base.

A Downing Street spokesman said today: "We have not commented on this book so far and we are not going to start commenting now."

Many of Ms Short's allegations have been rumoured before, including the idea that Mr Blair considered resigning before the coming election if he could secure membership of the single currency and the running battles with the Chancellor over policy.

But it is the first time anyone of Cabinet stature has claimed they were true.

In An Honourable Deception she says Mr Blair twice used her as a go-between in attempts to broker the resignation pact.

She says that on a trip to West Africa in February, 2002, Mr Blair confided he did not want to carry on in Downing Street for a third term.

"(He) wished Gordon would work more closely with him so that he could make progress on the euro and if he did so he would be happy to hand over to Gordon," she writes. Ms Short relayed the "offer" to Mr Brown but he rejected it.

"Gordon's answer was, firstly, that such deals were not worth talking about because previous agreements had not been kept, and, secondly, he would not contemplate recommending that we join the euro in order to advance his own position rather than advance the economic interest of the country."

She condemns Mr Blair's suggestion as "shockingly dishonourable", saying it was an inducement to a minister to alter fundamental policy for personal ambition.

Ms Short says Mr Blair repeated the offer as recently as last September.