Brown dismisses Levy claims

Gordon Brown has dismissed the suggestion that Tony Blair believed he could not defeat David Cameron.

The claim was made by former Labour fundraiser Lord Levy in the serialisation of his autobiography.

In an interview with the BBC, Brown said: "The issues ahead of us are more important than a few comments from one or two people."

His priority was "steering the economy through very difficult circumstances," he added.

"I'm going to concentrate on the job ahead, on the priorities that matter for the British people and not on the gossip or rumour, or statements made by one or two people," he said.

Lord Levy wrote: "Blair believed Cameron had major strengths - political timing, a winning personality and a natural ability to communicate to middle England that Gordon would be unable to match."

Brown said his predecessor's office had "made it clear that this is not an accurate reflection of what Mr Blair has said".

The prime minister acknowledged he had been forced to reassess the decision to scrap the 10p rate of income tax after a threatened rebellion by Labour MPs.

"Now we have dealt with that with the proposals we put forward last week," he said.

"But I think the background to the Budget that people will probably remember years from now is that we've reduced the basic rate of income tax from 22p to 20p, and we've done a lot more to help family poverty be eased."

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