Who is the real Cherie Blair? Did anyone really know at the end of Wednesday night's BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary? Here was a woman who professes to loathe the media but appeared perfectly happy to invade her own privacy by inviting them into her kitchen while she reheats soup and chats to her son...
In the six years I worked for her husband - a small technical fact that came in handy on the day she phoned up and tried to sack me at the end of the turbulent Peter Foster/Carole Caplin affair - I still like to think we had a happy and productive friendship in which I and others tried our best to help her maintain her career, her public duties as prime minister's wife and other sometimes controversial forays into the world of criminal justice, women's rights and foreign affairs. In spite of the hurt the end of our friendship caused at the time, I can understand why she may have felt her life might be simpler without me. However, her famed intelligence clearly deserts her if
she still can't see that the primary job of anyone employed at No 10 is to protect the interests of the prime minister and his office. If his spouse wants to do things that might bring that office into disrepute, the job of those who work for him is to intervene. Sometimes that means giving uncomfortable advice...Sadly, Cherie Blair, as she now prefers to be known in spite of the months we spent persuading Downing Street officials that she should be allowed to put "Cherie Booth QC" on her headed notepaper - in order that she retain her separate identity - is leaving No 10 with a mixed reputation. She clearly feels the need to set the record straight. Why else would she have taken
part in this programme? (Although, was I alone in wondering if the BBC was paying her? Why else would she do it?) But the fact that she needs to do that is partly because she chose to ignore the advice of people like me, and others, who, in spite of what she now claims, had her best interests at heart. Over time, she may come to see that. In the meantime, her successors can be very
grateful to her for giving them the support she did not initially have. If they spend a few minutes reading the mountains of correspondence they receive from the British public, they will note that the voters have high expectations of them, are tolerant and affectionate, but fall out of love very quickly if their privileged role is abused.
political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Friday, July 06, 2007
Discovering the Real Cherie
I haven't seen the REAL CHERIE BLAIR yet. That pleasure will come over the weekend. However, Fiona Millar (aka Mrs alastair Campbell), Cherie's one time personal assistant, has had her say in today's Guardian HERE. Hilarious stuff, as it confirms everything most of had ever thought about Cherie. How on earth did Fiona Millar put up with her for so long?
Once a dog always a dog!
ReplyDelete"Cherie Booth/Blair blazed a trail that others may find hard to follow. If she or any of her successors want a free bit of advice from someone who had a privileged ringside seat, I think it would be: never complain, never explain."
ReplyDeleteMeeaaaoooowww !!
"How on earth did Fiona Millar put up with her for so long?"
ReplyDeleteSorry, but anybody who has lived with Alastair Campbell probably has a high threshold in that way. And may also have adopted some of her beloved's ability to spin.
Just a suggestion.
I'm not sure I want to discover the real Cherie. Ever.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind betting Mr Tony had a bit of a surprise when he first discovered the real Cherie. But, to give him his due, he recovered well and he's kept up the fiction ever since.
Who on earth cares about this passé, despicable individual?
ReplyDeleteAttacking the Ex Pms wife.... seems that Camera Ons Tories are still nasty nasty nasty
ReplyDeleteThe hunting fraternity believe that Cherie was responsible for the hunting ban. At a dinner party Tony was in conversation, and let it slip out that he didn't want anything to do with a ban. At which point Cherie overhearing, reputedly shrieked,'Tony, you promised me.'
ReplyDeleteThis story made her a hated figure in country circles.
Missing you already, Letterbox Lips..
ReplyDeleteNot !
The thing is, the Blairs have suddenly lost an intolerable amount of limelight. Just nobody who is anybody is talking about them any more, my dear. The world's always fickle attention span has wandered away from them. They are last week's people, an eternity in politics. Even Mr Tony's shiny new Middle Eastern mission was ludicrously over-hyped, mainly by himself, and ignored by sensible folk. One can't blame Letter Box Face for a desperate last gasp of publicity oxygen.
ReplyDeletetapestry said...
ReplyDeleteThe hunting fraternity believe that Cherie was responsible for the hunting ban. At a dinner party Tony was in conversation, and let it slip out that he didn't want anything to do with a ban. At which point Cherie overhearing, reputedly shrieked,'Tony, you promised me.'
This story made her a hated figure in country circles.
July 06, 2007 9:09 PM
"""" URBAN MYTH """ Only believed by the most gulliable
I've never seen anyone drop off the map as quickly as the Blairs. It's as though they'd walked over the edge of a high cliff.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:06 loyally toes the socialist line and tries to slip the words "nasty, nasty, nasty" into as many posts as feasible - or even not feasible. One thing about socialists: subtlety is not their byword.
The unreal Cherie Blair, more like. She claims not to be completely stupid, but the only philosophical question she's asked she point blank refuses to answer.
ReplyDeleteRather you than me Iain. I would find it almost impossible to restrain myself from taking extreme physical action. This woman is completely self-obsessed, terrifyingly delusional and utterly amoral.
ReplyDeleteA recent piece of garbage from her is 'only my husband would volunteer for the most dangerous job in the world' - totally ignoring those many hundreds of Britons and tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans that her mendacious husband has sent to their deaths in recent years. If she thinks her husband is in danger she could, of course, suggest that he might wish to spend a little time in the safer confines of Basra or Helmand.
And now, having squeezed the maximum benefit from her time in Downing Street, 'Mrs Al Campbell' voices her disapproval. Excellent. Entirely predictable that the rats are now at each others' throats. But, tellingly, Millar says that she was 'employed by Tony Blair'. She clearly didn't seem to understand that we all have been footing the bill for her lavish 'lifestyle'. Self deception is clearly contagious.
Booth/Blair is simply schizophrenic. She will plead that she is merely a QC, when it suits her. At other times she'll be giving it the full 'Do You Know Who I Am' routine. She has no principles, her sole motivation is greed and self. All this nonsense about her 'charity work' - none of which costs her a single penny - hides the fact that she is using other people's platforms for her own dubious benefit.
I am appalled by her and her coterie. They have no dignity, no integrity and precious little intelligence. They are scum.
Ahh, a documentary on the advocate thief - sorry that should read thieving advocate - the one thing she's never been thought of doing is taking another lawyer without their permission...
ReplyDeleteOh, and by the way, - and I know this is not the time nor the place - but please god, let verity be a luvverly girlie...
ReplyDeletedo you not htink that FM comes over as justa tad bitter and bitchy?
ReplyDeleteI despise Cheire but it is ratehr glaring here and the writing is TEENAGE ANGST STYLE.
FM has form on being a rather odd, virulent lefty. Can't believe a word she says, just like I would not believe Cherie
Chuck Unsworth: "I am appalled by her and her coterie." She has a coterie? I didn't even know she had a single "friend" she hadn't paid for and now you're telling us she has a coterie? I'm impressed!
ReplyDeleteAlso, ask that children's cancer society in Oz. She gets paid handsomely for her "charity" work.
'Only my husband would volunteer for the most dangerous job in the world'. What job would that be, then, given that the US State Department made a panicky announcement, two days after Blair vacated Downing St, that his remit was not a 'mediator' or negotiator. As noted in rather terse terms by a startled White House, only the US Secretary of States negotiates for the United States.
They said his job was supposed to be sorting out the PLA's ramshackle ministries - a quixotic task to assign someone who took a wrecking ball to every single ministry in his own country.
So he's, errr, not a negotiator after all. It looks to me as though his new worldwide, very important job is sourcing office space for the PLA.
I always knew that Blair would end up in real estate.
Verity is spot on (as usual)about Cherie.
ReplyDeleteThe consorts of Prime Ministers (in times gone by) were always happy to be in the background, discreetly and even humbly supporting their spouses and rarely - if ever - being in the spotlight.
Dennis Thatcher was even prepared to play the fool that the press had cast him as, despite a successful career in business behind him.
Cherie - as a failed wannabee Labour MP - considered herself as much the star as Tony (and, let's be fair, with such a weed as a husband, what woman wouldn't?)
Sadly, her mis-placed ambition, avarice and delusional view of her own place in history only served to undermine Tony Blair's premiership.
She was an embarrassment to him - and more sadly - to our country.
Thank God they're gone!
You really are becoming a bitter old man before your time. This negative obsession with yesterday's celebrities can't be healthy. Have you considered anger management sessions?
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't think she was an embarrassment to him, Jonathan Hemlock. I cannot imagine what one would have to do to cause embarrassment to Tony 'Elephant Hide' Blair. He sat on Richard and Judy's couch and was fine with it, after all.
ReplyDeleteThe world would be such a nicer place if we could all just agree on something. So can we all just refer to her as "Greedie Boot", please?
ReplyDeleteWhatever most of the pondlife who inhabit this blog may say Cherie does have plenty of friends.
ReplyDeleteShe has put up with many years of personal abuse and unsubstantiated alllegations about herself and her husband to which she has not been able to respond - I very much doubt any of those who throw petty insults here would be able to show 1% of the tolerance that Cherie has shown.
Quite frankly, if this is how politician's wives are to be treated - then we will get the politicians we deserve. I would feel very sorry for Mrs Cameron in the unlikley event that Dave comes to power.
in the meantime could all the bigots get back to their bars (they have been missed)and leave the politics to the grown ups.
And i'm not arguing that Cherie is perfect (no one is) - I just don't like bullies.
Cherie is reported be a relation of John Wilkes Booth, the racist Irish actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
ReplyDeleteOdd sort of ancestor for a QC who's married to UK's former Prime Minister.
Auntie Flo'
Mrs Blair is a vulgar and common woman, and all her actions in courting publicity show that. It is nothing to do with her politics - whatever may be thrown at Gordon Brown, at least his wife knows how to behave with dignity, and I would be very surprised if she were to change now she is the PM's wife.
ReplyDelete“I remember when I was fourteen telling my classmates that my ambition was to become the first ever British female Prime Minister. I did make it to Downing Street. But not, sadly, under my own steam.” (Denver Post)
ReplyDeleteThank God.
Auntie Flo'
Verity:
ReplyDelete"Richard & Judy's couch" - ho, ho! I can't argue with you about this.
Now that their production company has to cough up £150k for their dodgy phone-ins, I wonder whether Tone & Cherie might feel inclined to contribute to their old friends' distress fund?
No...I didn't think so, either...
Poster masquerading as a Tory and a normal Brit under Tory Boys Never Grow up referring, of course, to Cherie Blair:
ReplyDelete"She has put up with many years of personal abuse and unsubstantiated alllegations about herself and her husband to which she has not been able to respond".
Hello? What am I missing? "... to which she has not been able to respond"? What? Are you daft? Why has she "not been able to respond", that frail, honourable creature?
She's not royalty and she held no official position in Britain. "Prime Minister's Wife is not an official position. She could have responded until she was blue in the face. To make Blair into a victim who was helplessly abused because she was nobley "unable (why?) to respond" demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of our system.
As in, we have never made women pray in separate areas of our churches - as you have claimed many times on other blogs without ever providing a single fact to prove your ridiculous and ignorant assertion. Churches aren't mosques. Don't forget that. Every soul is equal in the eyes of God in our country.
You are not one of us and cloaking yourself in the mantle of a Tory Boy has failed you miserably. Are you a doctor?
Verity,
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your dissection of "Tory Boys etc"'s woeful posting(s.)
Whoever he or she is, "its" postings represent the lowest order of Libdem or NuLab thinking.
As soon as any of us see "Tory Boys etc" heading up a comment, we know it's time to move on to the next comment, as there is nothing that this blogger can contribute which will be of the vaguest interest to most readers.
He/she/it is just a lightweight hoping to gain some credibility by posting comments on successful political blogs like this.
P.S. Verity: "Mrs Hemlock" is a doctor and is increasingly becoming more right wing than me. It's called the NHS.
Off string I know but nowhere else to put it:
ReplyDeleteNews 24 paper review at 1220
American paper reviewer chappy highlights global warming bollox, both about the concert and all the media guff about the unproven theory
BBC chappy says "but global warming is a fact"
So there we have it, BBC policy is that global warming is a fact. I for one am therefore looking forward to the similarily fact based forward weather forecasts they will no doubt be able to provide beyond the 2 day window of accuracy they currently operate on.
Jonathan Hemlock, "Tory Boys" etc is a muslim. His posts are too bizarre and disconnected.
ReplyDeleteCherie Blair "cannot respond"? What? Why not?
Christians in Britain had separate areas for women to pray in "in the not too distant past" - to quote him directly - but cannot name a single church where this was ever the case. Ever.
Tory Boys, Etc. - Missed your train to Glasgow, did you?
The key to the Blairs, and presumably their relationship with each other, has been the art of delusion, taken to the level of a mania, whereby their own perception of themselves is diametrically opposed to that of the general public.
ReplyDeleteIt makes it awfully difficult to convince such people of another point of view as they take it so personally. Such types are both sentimental and cynical, but never objective. So tenuous is their ability to deal with conflict head on that they are prone to see things in black and white; subtlety is beyond them. A profession as a barrister is perfect for her type since she has to believe in causes and not causation. She has evinced sympathy for suicide bombers in the past, declaring in mock empathy, that she "understands" their frustration. Of course she understands. She understands what it means to be hate figure - and for that she only has herself to blame.
Verity:
ReplyDeleteGo carefully here:
Missed your train to Glasgow, did you?
North of Carlisle, there are those of us who know how to deal with these bastards.
I know! Mr Smeaton, taxi-driver extraordinaire!
ReplyDeleteAye, and ithers, nae doot.
broown in amazing tax dodge -weeks before becoming PM:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=PABSBFKZTFU2TQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/07/nsarah107.xml
I think that the Torygrapgh got this slightly wrong - its a CGT dodge not an income tax dodge isn't it?
Into my a heart(England) a wind that kills, from a far country blows.
Police force infiltration
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=466832&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
Into my heart (England) a wind that kills from a far country blows.
The best moment was Tony lost for words when Fiona Bruce asked him if it was correct he called Cherie "The Gobby Scouser !" "Er ! No ! Er ! ..... (much eye rolling) er ! well er ! Bolshie Scouser. Yeh, I call her Bolshie Scouser NOT Gobby !" Classic
ReplyDeleteA few further comments. I use 'Coterie' in its strict sense, of course. See OED: "Circle or set of persons associated by eclusive interests; select circle in society". No mention of friends or friendship there, I feel. We'll see how many she has in a few weeks time.
ReplyDeleteDoubtless Ms Booth does have friends, in the same way as Saddam Hussein had friends. Miss Millar was content to pose as a close friend of Ms Booth when it suited her career path, but things seem somehow to have changed recently.
As to Ms Booth and her apologists bleating that she is 'unable' to defend herself. How many others have had so many platforms to speak from including (recently and post regime) the transmission of an hour-long programme in which she chose not to defend herself - that is apart from refusing the single direct question as to her behaviour?
This woman is a 'leading QC' - we are told. And she is unable to defend herself? Absolute rubbish. If there was half a chance of suing anyone Ms Booth would have been issuing writs all over the place, after all the prospect of substantial and punitive damages must have her salivating.
In this case I take 'not able' to mean "Not able (to do), lacking ability". That is, she has no defence for her disgusting behaviour, nor is she competent to defend it.
Then again: "Quite frankly, if this is how politician's wives are to be treated - then we will get the politicians we deserve". Apart from this being a logical non-sequitur, the good lady chose to deal with the world and the press in particular in this manner. Her parting shot, shouted across at the press outside 10 Downing Street, was neither funny nor dignified.
Other Prime Ministers' spouses have had the wit to understand that a more discreet approach is a) helpful and b) non-intrusive. Ms Booth did/does not even have the wit to understand that. Blind arrogance led to her public humiliation. She richly deserves her treatment.
nadds said...
ReplyDeleteBBC chappy says "but global warming is a fact"
For once the Brown Broadcasting Corporation is correct, global warming is a fact, what has not been proven "beyond scientific doubt" is what contribution human activity is making to this, or whether that orange thing in the sky we used to see over UK has rather more to do with it.
Still fly and limo some rock stars round the world to play their solar powered guitars, get 2 billion to sit in front of their (obviously green powered) TV sets all day and problem solved.
And no doubt the wembley car parks will be empty, as the green fans come by bike or public transport.
Give me an H, give me a Y give me a P..............
Anonymous 9:27. But global warming is a fact. The records show that temperatures are going up by a degree or two every few years.
ReplyDeleteWhat it is NOT, is "man made" global warming. That, indeed, is a lie. But if all the reporter said was "Global warming" is a fact, he cannot be faulted.
And further to the absurd assertion that the delicate and retiring Cherie Blair,the mouth that roared, "cannot defend herself", this hectoring, lecturing, over-assertive know-it-all offered her talents to the electorate 20 or so years ago and the electorate roundly declined the offer.
On the "propriety" issue, the wife of the prime minister of Britain has no official status. She can "defend herself" for 24 hours a day if she feels like it.
Tory Boys Etc, you have some very odd notions about Britain.
What shocked me was the red velvet dralon and pine bench in the number 10 kitchen , I wonder if she chose that?
ReplyDeleteEven if she didnt I would have thought they would have paid to have it replaced.
RED DRALON AND MDF PINE VENEER FURNITURE!
The Hitch nearly passed out from aesthetic shock.
The Hitch - You only have to look at how she dressed before she got advisors. Actually, after she got advisors, as well.
ReplyDeleteTwo lovely couples to spend an evening with - the Blairs and the Kinnocks.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to choose between a dinner date with Cherie and a dinner date with Fiona Miller I would choose Cherie every time.
ReplyDeleteTrumpeter Lanfried - What a horrible choice! That big fat wide open mouth would not recommend Cherie as a dinner companion. I don't want to see other people's food again once it has left their plate.
ReplyDeleteIt's the new neighbours of the Blairs that I feel sorry for. Perhaps they can get the council to have them moved on.
ReplyDeleteCherie Blair nee Booth and the common-law-wife of Campbell deserve each other.
ReplyDeleteAs for Fiona Millar, to have co-habited with the likes of Alastair Campbell for long enough to have popped two sprogs by that spawn of Satan makes her just as bad as the fiend himself in my opinion.
May he, she and all her family burn in the everlasting fire reserved for the Devil and all his angels. Amen and Amen.
Tapestry. I can cofirm that this story about Blair being hounded into promoting a fox hunting ban by his wife is true.
ReplyDeleteI know someone who was at that dinner party - at Chequers - and that neither Blair nor Booth knew that this guy was a master of foxhounds!
The Mail (who hated Booth) tried to stand it up, but the guy felt it would be dishonourable to stand the story up publicly - silly sod!