Gordon Brown will appear before the Commons Treasury select committee in January.

The chancellor will be grilled by MPs over his famously cool attitude to the euro as the Treasury prepares its assessment of the UK's five tests for membership of the single currency.

Brown has become more reluctant to support Britain joining the euro, reports today's Telegraph.

The newspaper says that a series of recent remarks by the chancellor in which he has unfavourably compared the British economy to euro-zone countries that are performing less well are seen as evidence of a rift on the issue between the Treasury and Downing Street.

The paper quotes a Labour MP who says: "There is a definite change of position going on. He's coming out and saying it now."

In the Times Peter Riddell reviews the "Calvinist optimist" Brown's prospects ahead of next week's pre-budget report statement.

"Mr Brown's instinct is to be positive. There is no emergency, or need to take panic measures - though Mr Brown is certain to take a tough line about public sector pay in view of the fire fighters' dispute. But he should resist the temptation to be Panglossian. He should be candid about why and how the fiscal deterioration has occurred," he writes.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation has warned that the government's spending programme could threatened by higher costs.