Brown tried to force Blair out of office, claims Cherie

CHERIE BLAIR accused Gordon Brown today of "rattling the keys" of Downing Street over Tony Blair's head in an attempt to force him out of office.

In the first extract from her autobiography, serialised in The Times, 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.

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

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

But she said he decided that he had to stay on to entrench his plans for city academies, foundation hospitals and pension reform.

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