Gordon Brown failed to persuade the former Treasury minister Geoffrey Robinson not to write his memoirs, although he feared the book would fuel the internal rows undermining Labour's authority.
The chancellor put pressure on the millionaire MP for Coventry North West to stay silent and abandon plans to publish his inside story of his time in government and the run-up to the last election.
Mr Robinson, a close friend of Mr Brown and a guest at his wedding celebrations on Monday night, refused but did agree to delay publication until after next week's conference at Brighton to avoid overshadowing the event.
The release next month of the former paymaster-general's book, The Unconventional Minister, is expected to include his side of the £373,000 home loan to Peter Mandelson, which cost both men their government posts.
Whitehall officials said the chancellor told the prime minister last week that the spate of books on the government was chipping away at its credibility, exposing rifts and concentrating public attention on personalities rather than policies.
Journalist Julia Langdon's biography of Mo Mowlam, written with the Cabinet Office minister's cooperation, gave details of the feuds between Labour's most popular figure and Mr Mandelson and Mr Brown as well as her rift with Mr Blair after she was removed from Northern Ireland.
Columnist Andrew Rawnsley's version of life in the government has led to Mr Blair and Mr Brown being accused of lying about the £1m donation which the Formula 1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone made to Labour.
Mr Blair was interviewed twice by Mr Rawnsley but advisers at No 10 denied he gave the author explosive information or criticised his colleagues. They said the prime minister defended the government's record and presented a picture of a relatively united team.
Mr Rawnsley also saw Mr Blair to check information. Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's press spokesman, and his assistant, Phillip Bassett, were present taking notes.
He interviewed Anji Hunter, the personal assistant to Mr Blair, and the head of the No 10 policy unit, David Miliband. He interviewed Mr Mandelson and his former special adviser, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser.
Former senior civil servants, including some in the Treasury, were interviewed. Mr Rawnsley has threatened to reveal sources if he is challenged in the courts or faces a full effort to damage his account.
The chancellor's private assessment will be seen as a tacit admission that it was a mistake to give his cooperation to a biography of him two years ago which claimed he still resented Mr Blair inheriting the Labour leadership.
Mr Robinson's book is due to be serialised in the Mail on Sunday, which is believed to have paid around £200,000.
Mr Robinson, who was forced to resign shortly before Christmas 1998 after the loan to Mr Mandelson was exposed, is understood to have given up hope of returning as a minister.
Mr Blair brought back Mr Mandelson within a year when he handed him Ms Mowlam's Northern Ireland portfolio and put him jointly in charge, with Mr Brown, of Labour's election planning.
The Northern Ireland secretary got his version of the loan into print in Donald Macintyre's recently updated biography and is said by associates to fear it could be challenged by Mr Robinson.
Downing Street shared Mr Brown's anxiety over Mr Robinson's book and Ms Hunter, a long term aide of the premier, was deputised to keep in close contact with Mr Robinson.
The Blair family holidayed in his Tuscan villa and Cannes flat before an offshore trust and £12m inheritance from the car dealer Joska Bourgeois were uncovered.
Mr Robinson has also been dogged by allegations about his business dealings and relationship with the former Mirror publisher Robert Maxwell. He was forced to apologise to the Commons for failing to register a directorship, though a police inquiry into fraud allegations at TransTec, the engineering company he formed and which collapsed last year, is understood to have found no evidence against Mr Robinson.
