YOUNGSTERS at a North-East school challenged Tony Blair with an assembly question time he described as "probably harder than from the Opposition" in Parliament.

The Prime Minister was at Gurney Pease Primary School, in Darlington, as part of a tour of the region yesterday.

Ten-year-old John Park provoked laughter when he asked: "Is there any time you've felt like quitting your job as Prime Minister?"

Mr Blair pointed at the assembled Press and said: "You see all these people here, they are what's called journalists."

There was a pause before he added: "The full answer to that is 'not yet'."

Sophie Garbutt, ten, asked whether there was anything he did not like about being the Prime Minister.

Mr Blair, who was on hand to open a new classroom which had been donated and installed by Dorman Long, a division of the Cleveland Bridge group, again pointed towards the assembled reporters.

He told the children he was a Newcastle United supporter, that he can speak "un petit peu" of French.

He declined to reveal how much pocket money he gave his children and added they had done "just fine" at the key stage one and two of the Sats.

When asked what three things he would take with him if he was stranded on a desert island, he said a good book, a photo of his family and his guitar, before adding: "I would be quite happy actually, it sounds a good idea, book me on the trip."

Mr Blair, who was joined by Darlington MP and Health Secretary Alan Milburn, handed out pupils-of-the-week certificates and listened as reception class children told him about their chicks, which hatched this week.

He then moved on to Darlington's Allington Way, where he opened Northgate Plc's new head office.

The company, Britain's biggest fleet hire firm, has installed satellite tracking systems in about 150 of its 40,000, vehicles and Mr Blair was shown positions of the vehicles nearest Downing Street and his constituency home.

Northgate's executive deputy chairman and founder, Alan Noble, presented Mr Blair with a miniature model of the van he used to start the firm.