Brown's fury over health claims as key week begins; PM denies painkiller rumour on TV.

Byline: ROB MERRICK

GORDON Brown was forced to deny taking prescription painkillers to cope with the stress of the job as Labour's make-or-break conference got off to a rocky start yesterday.

The Prime Minister was visibly angry when quizzed directly about rumours concerning his health during a BBC interview replying: "No. This is the sort of question that, all too often, is entering the lexicon of British politics."

Mr Brown went on to reject suggestions his eyesight is deteriorating, insisting a check-up just a few days ago had confirmed it was not.

Last week ex-Home Secretary Charles Clarke became the first senior Labour figure to suggest Mr Brown might use poor health as grounds for resigning before the election.

But aides to the Prime Minister were furious a highprofile interview centred on lurid internet rumours that, as questioner Andrew Marr put it, he required pills to "help him get through".

The clash came as the Brighton conference got underway with a furious blast from Chancellor Alistair Darling who accused key Labour figures, from the Prime Minister down, of having lost "the will to live".

Meanwhile Lord Mandelson did little for battered morale by suggesting he might offer up his business and trade skills to a Tory government in the event of election defeat - although he would never join the Conservatives.

And a stark report by a left-wing pressure group warned that this could be the last ever Labour government, if the Tories carried out their threat to axe scores of seats in Wales and the North.

The conference - the last before the general election - opened to the backdrop of disastrous Labour poll ratings and Mr Brown's accident-strewn trip to America last week.

Many Labour figures believe the Prime Minister must spring a "game-changing" policy surprise from his crunch speech tomorrow to have any hope of recovery.

Yesterday Mr Brown came out fighting, insisting Britain was emerging from recession because of the government's actions and that he would battle on, adding: "I do not roll over."

The Prime Minister pledged looming legislation to control bank bonuses would be the "toughest" in the world, saying: "I am not going to stand by and allow people to return to the bad old days."

And later, speaking in the conference hall, he urged voters to recognise his government had "saved" 200,000 firms from bankruptcy, 300,000 people from losing their homes and half a million jobs. Mr Brown said: "What is being tested is our belief that you do not walk on by and the Conservative belief that you just let the market take its way."

However the question-andanswer session took place before a half-empty hall and the conference slogan - Operation Fightback - hammered home the message that Labour are now the underdogs.

Today Mr Darling will attempt to seize back the initiative on the economy by announcing plans for a new law to force governments to keep the budget deficit under control.

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Gordon Brown