Tony Blair today fended off efforts to confirm when he would bow out as Prime Minister in the event of a Labour victory tomorrow.

In a rare interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Blair conceded that there would be a 'handover' period for his successor to take control, but appeared reluctant to say when that would be.

Mr Blair admitted that his reputation had suffered 'wear and tear' from criticism over Iraq, but said that he wanted to remain as the party leader to continue to push the party's agenda forward.

"There's a finite time for any political leader," he said. "Under Labour rules there is nothing that says you can not serve a full term, but we have to have a transition and a handover.

"I believe I have something to contribute. I want to carry our reforms forward. I want to be part of that. The international agenda - climate change, Africa - there are things I want to do."

Mr Blair last week told The Times that Gordon Brown would make an 'excellent Prime Minister'. He said today: "There's going to be a change at some point. Some people say to me now you've created speculation about your job ... but that speculation was rampant before."

In a long-awaited showdown interview just 24 hours before polls open, John Humphrys pushed the issue of Mr Blair's character back to the fore. The Prime Minister acknowledged that he had lost the trust of some voters but insisted the electorate was more concerned with the achievements of Labour's eight years in power.

He said: "Within myself I know that I tried to do the right thing. I've tried to do what is best. When people come onto me or call me a liar or say 'you can't be trusted' I prefer to say look at what we've done and what we can do."

He added: "You do take criticism and knocks in this job but I believe we are now more capable of offering the country a strong future than we were in 1997 when the expectation was high but the experience was low."

Mr Blair was challenged on reports of a private agreement he is suggested to have made with President Bush as early as March 2002 to remove Saddam Hussein 'come what may'. He retorted: "That is what people say, and it is simply not right."

He dismissed the recent leaks which suggest that he had been committed to regime change from an early point and misled Parliament and the public in an attempt to justify the case for war. He said: "What happens with all these things is that they are just lifted out of context."

He continued: "I did support regime change, provided that it was impossible to get what we wanted through the United Nations route. Going down the UN route, and giving Saddam a final chance to comply, is completely inconsistent with the notion that we decided to go to war in any event.

"Because had Saddam complied fully, unconditionally, immediately with the UN resolution passed in November 2002 ... then of course there would not have been a conflict."

Mr Blair said that after the September 2001 terror strikes on the US, he formed the view that it was "vital that we took a completely different attitude to the whole notion of proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, because my fear was that if terrorism managed to get its hands on these types of weapons, then terrorists that would kill 3,000 people would kill 300,000 people".

He continued: "My thought then was, look, Iraq is the place to start on WMD. It is not that you don’t have Iran, and North Korea, and Libya, and the network of AQ Khan, and others who were a big WMD problem, but the place to start was Iraq because of the history of UN resolutions.

"Now I may be wrong in that, but I thought you had to send such a clear signal across the world that regimes from then on would know that they had to comply with international obligations, and terrorists would have a reduced chance of getting their hands on such weapons."

Mr Humphrys continued on the theme of trust to question Mr Blair over his party's claims on the economy. In a pointed question, he said: "You are making claims that we can't believe. Inflation is higher than it has been for a very long time, personal debt and bankruptcies are at a record level, sales in the housing market are down by 30 per cent, you've borrowed like mad and now there's a huge black hole in the budget and tax is going to have to go up."

Mr Blair replied: "I certainly can tell you that the idea of some kind of black hole is absolute nonsense. If you look at the Government record on borrowing we have stayed well within our fiscal rules. It's hard to argue with the case that after eight years of a Labour government the economy is stronger."

He also accepted that while the decision to downgrade cannabis was 'intellectually' sound it had sent out the 'wrong signals.' He said: "It was worth seeing what happened."

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