The latest revelations from a book about Gordon Brown have disputed the prime minister's claim that he would "not do deals over his job".

Extracts from "Brown's Britain" by Sunday Telegraph journalist Robert Peston, published by that paper this weekend, suggested that Tony Blair agreed to stand down in favour of the chancellor if Brown paved the way for UK entry to the euro.

Blair sent three Cabinet ministers to convey the message to Brown, according to the book, even though last week he denied he had ever offered his longtime friend and rival the job.

That denial came in response to the first set of extracts from the book, which claimed that Blair was due to step down from Downing Street last year before he changed his mind.

Brown was reported to have said to Blair that "there is nothing you could ever say to me now that I could ever believe" as a result of the change of heart.

Peston's book is understood to have been well informed by sources in both Number 10 and the Treasury and the latest revelations will again be poured over by MPs and journalists alike.

In it, he says that Blair pressured the chancellor to use his power at the Treasury to influence its assessment of the five economic tests for euro entry.

Brown allies John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, transport secretary Alistair Darling and then international development secretary Clare Short were all dispatched to Number 11 in 2002 to make clear that Blair would be more prepared to give up the Labour leadership if he could first take Britain into the single currency.

The message was apparently also conveyed at a private dinner between the two men in 2001.

However the book quotes Brown as saying that "history would not forgive" either man if the tests were anything other than legitimate.

In the end four out of five were failed in 2003 and the prospect of Britain joining set back for at least another parliament.