Tony Blair was desperate to avoid being seen as “snuggling up” to Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, official documents of the early-noughties have revealed.

The then-prime minister wanted to use talks to develop the UK’s relationship with his controversial Italian counterpart, while, “holding our noses”, as one official put it.

As Mr Blair prepared for a summit in Rome in February 2002, Number 10 was anxious about how the British media would portray the talks, according to newly-released Whitehall papers.

But advisers also believed an apparent shift towards Euroscepticism by Mr Berlusconi’s government offered a chance to counter French and German ambitions for a more integrated EU.

Mr Berlusconi, who died last month, was widely condemned at the time for boasting of the “supremacy” and “superiority” of Western civilisation on a trip to Berlin in 2001, remarks seen as anti-Islamic in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Britain’s ambassador to Rome Sir John Shepherd told Downing Street there was a “real opportunity” to work together while “holding our noses and staying alert to the risks as we do so”.

Foreign Office official David Whineray wrote of wanting “to avoid ‘Blair snuggles up to Berlusconi’ headlines,” and presenting the talks as an “‘Italy-UK (not Blair-Berlusconi) summit”, papers released to the National Archives show.

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Stephen Wall, Mr Blair’s Europe adviser, wrote: “It will be to our advantage to work with Berlusconi, but not to be seen doing so too obviously.”

Mr Blair agreed, adding in a handwritten note: “But he is essential in the alliance against federalism.”

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Other government files published on Wednesday show Margaret Thatcher privately praised Mr Blair over his support for the US seven months after al Qaeda passenger jet hijackers carried out four suicide attacks, including on the Twin Towers in New York City.

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The former Conservative prime minister, who died in 2013, put aside her political differences with the Labour leader in a handwritten note dated 4 April 2002.

She wrote: “I greatly admire the resolve you are showing. You have ensured that Britain is known as a staunch defender of liberty, and as a loyal ally of America. That is the very best reputation our country can have.”

She signed off: “With all good wishes, Margaret T.”

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