Downing Street has denied claims that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's disagreement over Britain's policy on the euro led in 2003 to the chancellor being asked to "consider your position".

The comment came during an angry meeting between the two men in April 2003, according to the financial journalist Robert Peston.

In his new biography of the chancellor, Peston says Blair was trying to get Brown to soften his latest assessment on the Treasury's 1997 five tests of euro membership to make it sound more positive.