Asked on Sky News television whether he and his ambitious heir apparent had fallen out over arrangements for local council elections next month, Blair replied: "Absolutely not".

"There have been a lot of April Fool's stories, including that I was going to paint the Downing Street door red," said Blair in a live interview outside the glossy black door of his official London residence.

"I think this story falls into just about the same category... This stuff comes in and goes out again, and it has for all the time I have been prime minister and leader of the Labour Party."

"The important thing is to carry on doing the things that matter to people."

Blair made himself available for a round of breakfast-time TV interviews Monday after his Labour Party announced that he and Brown would appear together on Wednesday to launch its campaign for the May 4 elections.

The local-level polls will be the first real test of Labour's popularity since Blair led the party to an unprecedented third straight victory in general elections a year earlier.

Blair has said that this would be his last term as prime minister, but he has refused to set a firm date for his departure, resulting in frustration in the Brown camp.

Tensions have been aggravated by a "loans-for-lordships" furore in which four rich Labour supporters were nominated to the House of Lords after making generous loans to help the party win last year's elections.

Speculation intensified Sunday when the Observer newspaper claimed that Brown had been axed from the launch of Labour's local election campaign and relegated to a regional event.

Labour Party chairman Ian McCartney disclosed late Sunday, however, that Brown would be appearing alongside Blair and other cabinet heavyweights for the London area event.

Meanwhile, an ICM opinion poll in the News of the World newspaper indicated that 57 percent of voters would like to see Blair stand down, if not now, then within a year.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain acknowledged Sunday there was "tension" between Blair and Brown, but added that such friction was "inevitable in any huge operation such as running government".