The prime minister has dismissed as "soap opera" politics on-going claims of rift with the chancellor.

Speaking on a joint platform in Downing Street, Tony Blair sought to put aside speculation that he and Gordon Brown were at loggerheads over the euro.

His comments came the day after the chancellor delivered the government's "not yet" verdict on entry into the single currency.

Speculation suggested that Brown's statement to MPs was the result of torturous negotiations between the two men.

It is thought that Number 10 wants to take Britain into the currency and insisted on keeping open the option of a referendum in the lifetime of the present parliament.

Next door in the Treasury the mood is said to be more sceptical with the chancellor not wanting to put his hard won economic progress at risk.

The relationship between the longstanding friends and rivals has been the focus of huge volumes of Westminster gossip since Blair secured Labour leadership in 1994.

The prime minister, however, insisted that the latest rumours were coming from critics who wanted shift the focus of away from the economic case for euro membership.

"There are on both sides of this argument simplicities that are misleading," he told journalists.

"And when people see it through the prism of the two of us, they are seeing it in that way because they are actually wanting to avoid what are genuine questions."

And he denied a difference of emphasis on the fundamentals of euro membership.

"I'm often taken as somebody who wants to do this politically and don't care about the economics. I do care about the economics," said Blair.

"If you ended up dropping your interest rates very sharply in circumstances where your economy couldn't take it, the public wouldn't thank me for that.

"They would be saying that you spent six years sorting your economy out, getting it stable and now you're putting it at risk.

"On the other hand when people say of Gordon, 'is this something that he supports as of principle?'. That came through everything he said yesterday."