Brown denies unleashing 'forces of hell' on Darling

London: Responding to a damaging interview in which Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling accused No 10 spin doctors of turning on him, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that he would "never instruct anybody to do anything other than support my chancellor".

Asked on GMTV about the ‘forces of hell' allegation, Brown said: "I was never part of anything to do with this.

"Alistair has been a friend of mine for 20 years, we have worked together, our families know each other. We have worked together all this time and we have huge mutual respect for each other. I think he would confirm that."

Brown denied being a bully but admitted he could be viewed as "demanding" and a "hard task-master" who sometimes got angry and impatient. He said the day-to-day pressures of being prime minister were not for a "shrinking violet".

"I get angry sometimes doesn't everybody? I get impatient, I am driven to do the things. When I came into the job, I said look, I will try my utmost and I challenge people, I ask them to do the best they can," Brown said.

"Actually, we work in an open-plan office, we are a sort of family in Downing Street and like every family there are issues that come from time to time, but we have a got a great working environment and we get things done."

He added: "In my job you have got to get things done, you have got to push people you have got to challenge people. You don't solve a world recession by being a shrinking violet."

Darling spoke out last night when asked about Downing Street's reaction to a Guardian interview in August 2008 in which he said the world was facing "arguably the worst" economic downturn in 60 years. "I remember the weekend after we came back and I'd done this interview and the forces of hell were unleashed," the chancellor told Sky News.

Asked by the interviewer, Jeff Randall, whether this was by No 10, Darling added: "Not just them, the Tories as well."

He agreed with the assertion that two key Brown allies, Damian McBride and Charlie Whelan, had led the briefings against him.

"Of course there were people saying things, but frankly my best answer for them is the fact that I'm still here, one of them is not," Darling said in a reference to McBride, who resigned last year.

Whelan declined to comment on the affair. The Tories claimed that Darling's intervention undermined No 10's claims that Brown was not guilty of bullying.