Tony Blair has made all the money he needs

Tony Blair has apparently made enough money - and has decided to close down his commercial operation, Tony Blair Associates, and dismantle his opaque international corporate structure.

This may not be the economic or political story of the decade, but it feels as though it has cultural significance.

To be clear, he reserves the right to spend 20% of his time on what he calls "personal consultancies" to generate income.

But the reserves of Tony Blair Associates, which I understand to be a bit under £10 million, will be "gifted to the not-for-profit work" - according to a statement from his office.

According to two close friends of Mr Blair, he is fed up with all the negative media coverage of the perceived conflict of interest between his charitable and pro-bono work on the one hand, and his money-making activities.

"Tony would probably now accept that there was a bit of indecent haste to make money, a bit of a mad grab [after he resigned as prime minister in 2007]", said a source close to Mr Blair.

Mr Blair has been planning for some time to re-orient his work more towards his initiatives to improve governance in Africa, prepare Palestinians for statehood and encourage participation in sport among young people in Britain, said the source.

"He felt he had to wait for the Chilcot report [and its verdict on his decision to take us to war in Iraq] before restructuring his activities" said another associate of Mr Blair.

"But he wanted to do it this year, because he has been deeply frustrated that all his pro-bono work is overshadowed by the media obsession with how he makes money".

Within the Labour Party, 'Blair' and 'Blairite' have become terms of abuse for many members.

But another of his friends had a warning for him: "Now that he has in effect said that he will avoid all conflicts of interest, he has to be very careful that with his residual money-making activities he is not seen to be exploiting his pro-bono contacts in any way".