New British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, seeking to squash speculation that London may distance itself from Washington over Iraq, has insisted the U.S. is still Britain's number one ally.

Since Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as British prime minister last month, he has been at pains to stress there is no cooling off in Anglo-American relations -- but two of his ministers offered mixed signals.

Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said in a speech in Washington that while Britain stood beside the United States in fighting terrorism, isolationism did not work in an interdependent world.

Then Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown followed up in a weekend interview by saying that Britain had to nurture a wider range of allies and predicting London and Washington would no longer be "joined at the hip."

Blair's decision to back President George W. Bush and go to war in Iraq sent his popularity plummeting in Britain and contributed to his departure after a decade in power. He was lampooned as "Bush's poodle."

The change of premiership has prompted speculation that Britain might accelerate troop withdrawals from Iraq. Britain has been gradually reducing numbers in Iraq and now has about 5,500 troops in the south.

Miliband, writing in the News of the World tabloid, said there would be no change to the so-called "special relationship" between London and Washington.

"With a new Brown government, some people are looking for evidence that our alliance is breaking up. There isn't any and there won't be any," he wrote.

"Nothing has changed. Our strongest bilateral relationship is with the USA," he said.

Brown is flying to Berlin for talks on Monday and plans to visit Paris and Washington after that.

He has said he will continue to work closely with the U.S. administration.

"We'll not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges we face around the world," he said, when asked to comment about minister Douglas Alexander's words.

Brown may have been forced to step in and seek to reassure Washington there is no major change in foreign policy -- but his popularity shows no signs of fading after he finally took over as prime minister after a decade in the wings.

An ICM survey in the Sunday Telegraph showed the Labour Party enjoyed its best poll position for almost two years -- 40 percent compared to 33 percent for the opposition Conservatives and 19 percent for the centrist Liberal Democrats.

In a News of the World poll, 53 percent felt Brown was best equipped to lead Britain compared to just 27 percent for David Cameron, the youthful Conservative leader who has rejuvenated his party after three electoral drubbings.

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