TONY BLAIR will today vow to be more New Labour than ever before in shaking up schools, hospitals and the economy - while making clear he will not quit No10 early.

The Prime Minister will use his speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton to set out detailed plans for what his aide called the "next era of New Labour in power".

The speech will aim to squash speculation that Mr Blair could retire within 12 months in favour of Gordon Brown - hailed yesterday by the trade unions as Labour's leader in waiting.

The growing number of endorsements of the Chancellor by his Cabinet colleagues has sparked suggestions that the Prime Minister will go back on his promise to serve a full third term.

But last night, Mr Blair's spokesman, David Hill, said he enjoyed "the political unity of the Cabinet that guarantees the support required to see the third term programme through".

Asked if the Prime Minister would quit early, he said: "He has committed himself to a programme of work that he wants to see through".

The Chancellor was careful to make clear his determination to take forward Mr Blair's modernisation agenda, which includes greater private sector involvement in schools and hospitals.

But he also won the warm applause of left-wing activists and trade unions when he hailed community values and the public service ethos as cornerstones of his vision of "a great British society".

It set the stage for Mr Blair to try to win over a rank-and-file angered by more privately-sponsored city academies and plans to hand over chunks of the NHS to private firms.

But Mr Hill said Mr Blair would stress that "in a world of ever faster change", Labour had to modernise again - just as it had done successfully to win in 1997.

He said: "He will make clear the solutions to the challenges lie not in being less New Labour, but in being more New Labour."

Mr Blair would set out how a "combination of detailed policy and New Labour values will secure a fourth successive Labour General Election victory".

And he would go on to say: "Unless we own the future, and unless our values are matched by a completely honest understanding of the reality now upon us and the next reality about to hit us, we will fail."

In his speech yesterday, Mr Brown said Mr Blair, by announcing his intention to stand down before the next General Election, had challenged the party to plan ahead for the post-Blair era.

And he revealed plans to prepare for the vacancy he is expected to fill through a year-long tour of the country to discuss his plans for economic, social and constitutional change.

This week's gathering has seen Mr Brown effectively anointed as heir to the Labour leadership, with a string of Blairite Cabinet ministers lining up to say there is no alternative candidate.

But former minister and Hartlepool MP Peter Mandelson cast doubt on Mr Brown's prospects, recalling that his own grandfather, Herbert Morrison, was once seen as Clement Attlee's natural successor, only to be supplanted by Hugh Gaitskell.