Labour's campaign coordinator has described reports that the prime minister is planning a February general election as "rubbish".

In an interview with the Guardian Alan Milburn boasts the party is at an advanced stage of planning for the poll but dismisses the weekend stories as speculation.

"We are very well advanced, but it is rubbish to suggest we have set February as the date for the election," the Cabinet minister says.

Officials indicated May remains the most likely date.

Milburn promises to defend every Labour seat, including those the party never expected to win in 1997.

"We are in a far better state at this stage of the electoral cycle than previous Labour governments have ever been," he says.

But the campaign will be "fought locally as much as it is nationally".

"Messages about the record of national achievement tend to mean less than what is happening in Darlington, Derby or Dartford," he argues.