Visit Offer Spurned

Blair suggested he could prepare the ground for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, because "if she goes out, she's got to succeed ... whereas I can just go out and talk."

The left-leaning Guardian said Blair "all but offers to carry her (Rice's) bags."

"He sounds less like the head of a sovereign government than a Bush official, waiting for the boss's green light -- which he does not give," the newspaper said.

Blair has been Bush's most trusted ally, putting his political future on the line by backing the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite rows with European allies and fierce political attacks at home.

The Independent described the spurned offer to act as peacemaker as a setback for Blair, who is under pressure from within his own party to set a date to step down after a series of government scandals over sex, sleaze and incompetence.

Blair has said he will not stand at the next general election, expected in 2009.

Wyn Grant, politics professor at Warwick University, said the conversation suggested "that perhaps Blair doesn't have the kind of relationship with Bush that he would sometimes like to claim he has."

But he said the conversation only reflected reality. "The US-UK relationship throughout the whole period since World War Two has always been an asymmetrical one. It's always been one in which the U.S. has been dominant."