Dr Mo Mowlam has rallied to Downing Street's defence after an astonishing attack from a former Blairite fund-raiser who accused the Prime Minister of being cowardly and unmanly.
The Cabinet Office Minister insisted "there is no one briefing against me" after claims by the millionaire author, Mr Ken Follett, that she and other ministers had been the victims of secret briefings conducted on Mr Blair's behalf by spin doctors.
In a devastating critique Mr Follett - credited with raising millions of pounds for the New Labour project, and whose wife, Barbara, is MP for Stevenage - ventured that Mr Blair might go down in history "as the prime minister who made malicious gossip an everyday tool of modern government".
Writing in the Observer, Mr Follett described off-the-record briefings against ministers, which he said happen every week, as "the media equivalent of the poison pen letter - an anonymous attack by someone who is scared of honest confrontation". He continued: "The whole business stinks. If you are displeased with a colleague, you should look him or her in the eye and say so. That's the behaviour my parents' generation called "manly". "It's what we expect from leaders."
Mr Follett dismissed those who whispered "the words of poison" as "the rent boys" of politics. "We shudder with disgust when they brush past us in the lobby. But what is truly disgusting is the desire for their services."
Laying the responsibility at Mr Blair's door, he went on: "The polite fiction that the prime minister's advisers are responsible is absurd. Control-freak Tony doesn't let Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson go around saying anything they like. They do what the boss tells them. Peter isn't the Prince of Darkness, though he may be Lady Macbeth."
Mr Follett then stepped-up his attack, insisting on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost: "If it is not Alistair, it is Peter. They are Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, and if it is not one of those it is somebody who works for them. But they all work for the same boss. . . It is Tony Blair. If Tony told them to shut up, they would shut up."
Mr Campbell, the prime minister's official spokesman, said serious people would treat Mr Follett's "rant" with derision, and said anyone listening to the interview might be inclined to wonder whether he has a new book coming out.
Ms Mowlam told the July issue of Saga magazine: "Somebody is not happy with me. . . I don't think it's Tony Blair. . . but somebody wants to do me down."
Yesterday, however, she declared herself satisfied "there is no one briefing against me, no foundation to the stories" and urged Labour supporters "not to believe the rubbish being peddled".
The Leader of the Commons, Ms Margaret Beckett, dismissed the whole idea of the Prime Minister being behind the briefings. She said: "From time to time there is a media frenzy to see if they can get down some particular minister and if it doesn't work, they move on."
PA adds: Mr Follett (51) and his wife Barbara (57) have been described as the archetypal New Labour couple. They were known for throwing parties at their home in Chelsea and for their friendship with the Blairs.
Mr Follett raised millions of pounds for party funds and his wife Barbara helped update the image of dowdy Labour MPs, advising politicians on their clothes, colours and hairstyles.
In 1995 she was adopted as the party's candidate for the marginal constituency of Stevenage and she won the seat back from the Tories in the 1997 election.
He is one of the world's most successful thriller writers and began writing novels in his spare time while he was working as a journalist. His 11th book The Eye of the Needle was the first of many international bestsellers.
Barbara, born in Jamaica, lived in Britain and Ethiopia before moving to South Africa where she met her first husband, the philosopher Richard Turner. They became vocal anti-apartheid campaigners. He was assassinated in front of one of her daughters and she later moved to Britain.