The prime minister has made a pitch for the Jewish vote by promising not to attack Michael Howard's background.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Tony Blair insisted he would "never, ever, ever" resort to anti-Semitism in an election campaign.

The move came after a row over a series of Labour Party campaign posters, which were accused of being anti-semitic.

Images depicted the Tory leader and shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin as flying pigs, while another was claimed to show Howard as Shylock or Fagin-like.

Government minister Mike O'Brien has also been accused of deliberately courting Muslim voters by saying Howard would offer them nothing.

But Blair claimed the posters were "not intended to cause any offence to anyone in the Jewish community."

"The idea that I would allow anybody to make such a charge is outrageous. It's untrue," he said.

"If you look at what I do, I attack Michael Howard politically. I would never, ever ever attack him on that basis."

He also defended his record of standing up for Jewish interests in Britain and abroad.

"I've been a very, very strong supporter of the Jewish community and of Israel, and will always be so," he said.

"We introduced, as a government, Holocaust Memorial Day, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find anybody who's dealt with us at an official level in the Jewish community who has not seen us as extremely sensitive to the concerns that the Jewish community have," the prime minister added.

"We have been staunch supporters of Israel, staunch defenders of the Jewish community and aggressively against any form of racism."