Interviewed at length in today's Independent, Tony Blair sets out his stall for a third term in government.

Pressed on Iraq, the prime minister says: "I only ask people to understand there wasn't a middle way.

"So it was a nightmare in the sense that, whatever you did, you were going to get problems either in sorting out Iraq after a conflict or you would get big problems leaving Saddam in charge."

When quizzed about his pledge that his government would be whiter than white, Blair says: "My frank assessment is that they were always going to say one of two things about me.

"The hope of the right wing was that New Labour would turn out to be old Labour, that we would mess up the economy and would not be strong on defence and therefore they could say that we came in as New Labour and turned into old Labour.

"If they weren't able to say that, I always knew they would go for my character. In 2001, they were calling me a liar and a cheat and that was before Iraq. The right wing plays this politics in a very heavy way."

He also denies suggestions that his relationship with Gordon Brown is weak.

"The relationship is not fragile because the mutual respect and friendship goes far deeper than people understand from the outside," he says.

On the Tories he adds: "It's perfectly obvious what the Conservatives should do but it may not be obvious to them.

"I'm not giving them free advice, but while people say their current strategy is very clever it is not a programme for government. How can you run a campaign that doesn't talk about the economy?"