Prime Minister Tony Blair will resign in just over a year, his former press secretary, Alastair Campbell, was quoted as saying.

Asked when Blair planned to quit, Campbell said: "A year and a bit", according to The Spectator magazine.

Prime Minister Tony Blair poses as the RAF Red Arrows display team flys in formation alongside an Airbus A380 at the Farnborough Air Show. Tony Blair will resign in just over a year, his former press secretary, Alastair Campbell, was quoted as saying. [AFP]

He was responding to a question from Boris Johnson, an MP for the main opposition Conservative Party, the weekly periodical said.

Johnson is a former editor of The Spectator.

At a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Russia, which ended Monday, Blair said he was looking forward to attending next year's meeting -- an indication that he planned to serve at least one more year.

The British leader, in his third consecutive term in office, has pledged to step down before the next general election, due by May 2010 at the latest, but has never publicly set a precise exit date.

Calls for him to go sooner rather than later have mounted after a series of scandals hit his government and the governing Labour Party.

Campbell was appointed Blair's press chief in 1994, when the prime minister was first elected Labour leader. He stepped down in 2003.