Blair, Brown cosy up on TV

Gordon chuckles and purrs coyly to him over a mug of tea: "It's about working as a team."

Tony gazes back, oozing sincerity: "Whatever the difficulties, whatever the tensions - and there are a few from time to time - actually it's a partnership that works."

Is this lovefest really the bitterest rivalry in UK politics?

The ruling Labour party's first TV party political broadcast, ahead of the election, is an extraordinary attempt to show Britons that Prime Minister Tony Blair and his powerful Finance Minister Gordon Brown are friends - really.

Shown on Monday night and produced by Anthony Minghella, the director of Oscar-winning The English Patient, Labour's five-minute political spot concentrates exclusively on shots of Mr Brown and Mr Blair chatting and interacting.

In the first soft-focus sequence, Mr Blair and Mr Brown sit round a desk in a wood-panelled room, the latter jotting down their joint achievements - "stability." Then they move to more informal cafe surroundings, smiling over tea and juice.

It's all a far cry from the pair's reputation as fierce rivals for power who frequently and loudly clash behind closed doors. Mr Brown is reputedly resentful of Mr Blair for reneging on a promise to hand over power years ago.

Insiders are full of stories of shouting matches and mutual snubs, while aides for both quietly fuel the tension.

But with an election to win in just over three weeks' time, that is not a good image to portray.

So Mr Blair and Mr Brown are dramatically patching up - or patching over - their simmering row.

The TV broadcast was just the latest in a series of carefully choreographed, smiling public appearances together.

The pair may have done enough to reduce the electoral harm from the story of their rivalry. But sceptics are unconvinced. Anti-Blair newspaper The Daily Mail ridiculed them yesterday with a cartoon showing them standing shoulder-to-shoulder together in front of a battery of TV cameras and microphones - each hiding a dagger behind his back. And the Labour broadcast came in for predictable ridicule. The Guardian called the Blair-Brown movie "the most stilted conversation in history."

"Judging from the repeated shots of Mr Blair without, then with, a tie, the harmonious broadcast took more than a few takes to put together," added the observant Daily Telegraph.