Peter Foster, who last year helped Cherie Booth buy two flats in Bristol at a discount, has said he intends to publish a photograph of himself with Tony Blair, contradicting No 10’s insistence that the two never met. He has claimed it will be included in his memoirs, last week billed in the Australian press as a “literary weapon of mass destruction”.

If proved authentic, the picture would raise serious questions about the frankness of No 10 as it sought to distance Blair from last December’s scandal.

While Booth was forced to apologise for “mistakes” and for misleading the public about her involvement with Foster in the purchase of the flats, no evidence emerged to link Blair directly with Foster.

In a statement issued at the height of the furore, No 10 said: “The prime minister has never met Mr Foster.” This weekend No 10 declined to make any fresh comment.

Foster, introduced to Booth by Carole Caplin, her lifestyle consultant, will reportedly receive £500,000 for his memoirs, including fees for serialisation. According to The Courier-Mail, a Brisbane newspaper, the extracts are to be published in Britain ahead of the Labour party conference.

Foster’s friends claim Caplin persuaded Foster to hand over the photograph when he moved out of her London flat last December. But they say he had already scanned a copy of the picture and has submitted it for tests of authenticity. This weekend he and his lawyer, Sean Cousins, declined to comment.

The book is expected to answer other outstanding questions from the so-called “Cheriegate” affair. Foster is likely to deny rumours that he targeted Caplin, who became his girlfriend, because of her friendship with the Blairs, and to explain why she fell for him despite his fraud convictions.

The latest threats to No 10, in the extended fall-out from the affair, come only a week after Caplin appeared to be ready to publish embarrassing secrets of life inside Downing Street. Her pass had been withdrawn and the Blairs were trying to cool their friendship.

Although she backed down and issued a public pledge through her lawyers not to betray any secrets, her links with the Booths are once again provoking bitterness.

She has now been tied more closely to the Booth family with the recruitment of Lyndsey Booth, 47, a homeopath and Cherie’s sister, to the six-strong team at her lifestyle company, the north London-based LifeSmart.

The appointment has stirred up misgivings among other members of the Booth family. According to one source, Lyndsey has been sucked in to the new age ideology espoused by Caplin.

The source said: “Do remember that Cherie is a QC, a highly intelligent person, who is not so suggestible to potions and crystals as she is sometimes portrayed. However, she does care deeply for her sister, and is more likely to swallow those ideas if they come from her.”

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