Tony Blair personally asked government officials to keep details of lucrative post-Downing Street advisory work hidden from the public, The Telegraph can disclose.

In a letter sent the year after he stepped down as prime minister, Mr Blair insisted that any contracts he struck on behalf of his new consultancy firm should be kept “confidential” to protect his new clients, including foreign governments and major international companies.

Following his intervention, the official watchdog that vets the jobs ministers take up after leaving office quietly agreed to avoid publishing details about Tony Blair Associates that would “attract unnecessary attention”. It never published the names of its clients, despite publishing details of work Mr Blair had before the firm was set up.

The ministerial code requires former ministers to consult the advisory committee on business appointments (ACOBA) on each role they wish to take up within two years of leaving office. ACOBA’s rules state that it should publish its advice in each case.

The correspondence forms part of a cache of documents obtained by this newspaper following a four-year legal battle to shed light on the clearance Mr Blair received before striking multi-million pound deals to advise Gulf states and conglomerates. ACOBA was forced by a judge to hand over the papers after spending an estimated minimum of £10,000 in legal fees resisting a ­Freedom of Information request by The Telegraph.