Cherie Blair accuses Brown

In the first extract from her autobiography serialised in The Times newspaper, Mrs Blair disclosed that her husband would have stood down as Prime Minister before the 2005 General Election if Mr Brown had been prepared to back his public service reforms.

In an interview with the paper, she said that Mr Blair was now advising Mr Brown through the current political turmoil and counselling him on how he could win the next General Election.

However, her comments risk re-opening old wounds within the Labour Government at a time when the party is still reeling from its drubbing in the local elections.

Mrs Blair said that her husband had suffered a "crisis of confidence" over the Iraq war, fearing that he had become an electoral liability.

But she added that he had decided he had to stay on in order to entrench his plans for city academies, foundation hospitals and pensions reform.

She said that Mr Brown was "rattling the keys above his head" and had failed to understand that Mr Blair would have quit if he had supported his reforms.

"Tony would have stood down, there is no question", she said. "Instead of which Tony felt he had no option but to stay on and fight for the things he believed in."

The timing of the publication of Mrs Blair's autobiography came as a surprise, having originally been scheduled for the autumn.