The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, yesterday publicly declared that he stands shoulder to shoulder with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown, in a move aimed at quashing reports of bitter in-fighting between rival camps of supporters.
Mr Blair said he and Mr Brown worked more closely together than any prime minister and chancellor in living memory.
Their relationship had been central to creating New Labour and winning the general election and was even more important now as ministers moved on to "deliver a huge, radical, modernising agenda", Mr Blair said as he boarded a government-chartered British Airways 777 jet in the Seychelles, where he was on holiday with his wife, Cherie, for a four-day official visit to South Africa and Kuwait. Mr Blair said of his relationship with Mr Brown: "We have always worked as a team and we always will work as a team.
"I know that conflict will always make more headlines than partnership, but it's a partnership built to last.
"And it's a government without any of the kind of ideological divisions that destroyed the Tories."
He was determined to drive the political agenda forward in the wake of the resignations of Mr Peter Mandelson, the paymaster general, Mr Geoffrey Robinson, and Mr Brown's press adviser, Mr Charlie Whelan.
Mr Blair flew into Pretoria yesterday to face protests from white South Africans seeking an apology for introducing concentration camps during the Boer War and from Muslims angry over last month's bombing of Iraq.
As Mr Blair, accompanied by his wife Cherie, arrived for a private dinner at the residence of Mr Thabo Mbeki, deputy president, he was met by jeers and protests from Afrikaaners. They blame Britain for being the innovator of concentration camps.