PM refuses to veto election

Asked if he might go to the polls early, the Prime Minister insisted he was currently focused on the economy. However, he did not deny that ministers were pressing him to consider the option.

"I am getting on with the job of trying to take us through these difficult times," he said. "That's the only thing on my mind."

Mr Brown was visibly relaxed at the end of a summit where he has earned so many plaudits as to cause reports of a "squabble" with a jealous French president Nicolas Sarkozy. There have been days of intense rivalry between the two leaders over who gets credit for the economic rescue plan that was formally agreed at today's Brussels summit.

French diplomats were furious at what they saw as a deliberate campaign by Mr Brown to push their president in the shade and claim all the plaudits for himself.

They complained that Mr Brown arrived early to hog the limelight, and made announcements without waiting for Mr Sarkozy, the summit chairman and current EU president. Foreign Secretary David Miliband played down reports of a fall-out. "This is not about politicians squabbling," he said on Sky News, adding: "This is about a real world crisis."

A £1.7 trillion intervention to prop up Europe's banks was based on Mr Brown's ideas. But President Sarkozy, as chairman of the summit, felt he deserved plaudits for negotiating an EU-wide agreement on the moves and also for having suggested a global reform process at the same time as Mr Brown.

Mr Brown, who usually arrives late at EU gatherings, missed Prime Minister's Questions so that he could turn up early. He then circulated his proposals for future regulation, separately from a Sarkozy paper.

Labour insiders said a snap election was difficult because the party had not assembled an election war chest.