Tony Blair has said he would like another stint as prime minister, but accepts it is unlikely to happen.

Mr Blair said he did not want to leave office when he quit in 2007, but feared he would spark a "very bloody battle" inside Labour if he tried to resist pressure to go.

He praised current Labour leader Ed Miliband's "sensible" decision to keep the party in the centre ground.

And he warned that it was wrong to believe that the fall-out from the financial crisis meant Labour should swing to the left and drop its links with business.

Mr Blair's interview with the Evening Standard - which he was guest-editing for the day - comes as he steps up his involvement in domestic politics after a lengthy period in which he has concentrated on his job as international Middle East envoy and his foundations for faith, sport and Africa.

He has made clear that he would like another big job in public service. And when he was asked whether he would accept another term as PM if it was offered, he replied: "Yes, sure, but it's not likely to happen, is it?"

Looking back to the day of his resignation, he said: "I didn't want to go but I felt that I had to. The only choice would have been to have fought a very bloody battle internally which I thought would damage the country as well as the party."

Mr Blair said that it was "inevitable" that Labour would go down to defeat in the 2010 general election after it became clear that, under his successor Gordon Brown, it did not know whether or not it wanted to stick to the New Labour agenda he had mapped out.

He predicted that the Liberal Democrats will struggle at the next election, scheduled for 2015, and urged Mr Miliband to stick to the centre ground.

"My advice to the Labour Party is to sort ourselves out with a strong modern policy," said Mr Blair. "Frankly you can't tell what will happen, if there will be a coalition or not, but I suspect it will be far more of a two-party fight next time."

'I Didn't Want To Quit': Blair Admits He'd Like To Be PM Again