Senior Cabinet ministers have played down suggestions of a new rift over Labour's campaign strategy.

The interventions came after Gordon Brown confirmed he had been removed from a key post overseeing the party's election strategy.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the chancellor refused to say whether he enjoys a strong relationship with the prime minister.

"I've got my job to do and he's got his job to do. It's as simple as that," said Brown.

His comments follow the prime minister's decision to put Alan Milburn in charge of the party's re-election strategy, a post previously held by the chancellor.

"I've never in the past gone into talking about the things, and rumours and speculation and talking about private conversations I may or may not have had with people," continued the chancellor.

"The one thing I am clear about is that my responsibility is two-fold - it is to stand up for what I believe is right for Britain and to uphold and work for the unity of the Labour Party."

He also told the newspaper that he was not at the session of the Cabinet that backed Milburn's appointment as head of the election campaign.

"I wasn't at the Cabinet because my mother was very ill. I don't know what was said in detail there," he said.

"In the last two elections, I was obviously the chairman of our election strategy. In this election I am not."

Brown added: "At the same time I've got a pretty big job to do as chancellor and I am quite happy to get on with it."

Following the comments, Milburn insisted the chancellor would be "intimately" involved in election planning.

"The two jobs I have got are the job of co-ordinating government policy - which is my job as a government minister - and then the job of planning the election campaign," he told Sky News' Sunday with Adam Boulton.

"But that is not just a job for me. As I have always said, this is a team game and it only works as a team game, with obviously Tony in charge of the process.

"Anybody who ever thought that as dominant and towering a figure as Gordon wasn't going to be involved in all of this was living in cloud cuckoo land.

"I have got a job to make sure that the general election planning is in place for the party.

"When the general election comes, then of course we have got to make sure that all the figures involved in the Labour Party and the Labour Cabinet are involved in that process, and Gordon will be an intimate part of that process."

Blair backs Brown

The prime minister was also forced to deny reports that the chancellor had been sidelined.

"He will do exactly what he's always done," Blair told the BBC.

"What's important is we both get on with doing the job of government."

And Scotland secretary Alistair Darling dismissed reports of further splits between the two men at the heart of the government.

"This thing has been running for 10 years now and as somebody who is fairly close to both of them, you can't help but smile at times, and other times you could almost cry with frustration," he told BBC Radio Scotland's Sunday Live programme.

"The two of them work very well together and they dominate British politics.

"They are both extremely clear about the sort of society they want to build."

Home secretary David Blunkett also said there were no splits over campaign strategy.

"There isn't a sliver between Tony, Gordon, myself and others in terms of that central feature of what Bill Clinton called 'the economy, stupid' in his first election campaign," he told BBC Radio 4's World this Weekend programme.

"Of course that is at the centre. That is the driving force, the motor, to enable us to be able to invest in education, health, in reducing crime and improving the environment and arts."

And trade secretary Patricia Hewitt told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme that the chancellor was responsible for a strong economic performance.

"Gordon Brown is a superb chancellor and will go on making - I’ve no doubt at all - a wonderful contribution," she said.

Meanwhile, John Reid insisted that Brown had not lost out on a major role.

"Along with Gordon Brown and others, Alan will sit on the strategic election committee, chaired by the prime minister. That's always been the case," the health secretary told BBC1's The Politics Show.

"Gordon Brown is sitting on the strategic committee. My memory is this was previously chaired by Gordon but it is chaired by the prime minister now, but there is no great issue here.

"The real issue is do we in the Labour Party want to bring all the talents to the table?"