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Cherie: 'Bolshie and proud'

Natalie Anglesey
4/ 9/2008

"MANCHESTER should feel very proud of its Olympians," says Cherie Blair.

The former prime minister's wife has recently returned from Bejing where the Blairs enjoyed a family holiday at the Olympics and witnessed medal victories from our Manchester-based sportsmen and women at first hand.

"To see us win so many medals was uplifting."

Tonight, she will give the Manchester lecture for the Literary and Philosophical Society. "Although I was brought up in Liverpool don't forget that I was born in Bury, at Fairfield Hospital. I was very proud when they invited me back to open their refurbished maternity unit and present me with a framed copy of my birth certificate."

Staunch

Cherie, who will be 54 this month, was only six weeks old when her parents left her with her paternal grandmother, who brought her up a staunch Catholic and an equally staunch socialist.

Her parents were actors who were touring a great deal, although there were periods when her mother was able to be with her. She writes frankly about her father, Tony Booth, abandoning them when she was eight, in favour of a new partner and a new family. She says: "I organised a reconciliation, years later, after he was badly burnt in a fire. It was hard but I just felt it was time."

The first in her family to go to university, Cherie graduated with a first from the London School of Economics, was the top law student in the country and won her first pupillage in chambers beating a young law student called Tony Blair.

She admits it was she who urged Tony to stand for the top job when John Smith died suddenly, and many have suggested similarities between Cherie and her friend Hillary Clinton.

"Hillary once gave me a master-class in politics and the best advice I ever had when she told me that I'd never please all the people all of the time. I admire the way she has embraced supporting Barack Obama."

Obama's wife, Michelle, has said that she'd helped her husband to write some of his speeches and I wondered if Cherie has done the same for Tony?

"Although there are professional speech-writers on board, Tony likes to put his own stamp on all his speeches." But, she laughingly admits: "Sometimes I've been known to try mine out on my children!"

Retrospect

Cherie stood for Parliament at the same time as her husband but failed to gain a seat. She laughs again. "I think the wisest thing that happened was that I didn't get in. I'm perfectly happy just supporting Tony."

Whilst many women empathised with the sight of Cherie's messed up hair, when she unwittingly opened the door to a barrage of cameras the morning after Labour's victorious landslide, it signalled the start of her rocky relationship with the Press. "I was the first working wife in Downing Street and I don't think the Press knew what to make of me. When I tried to look my best as the PM's wife, representing my country, it seemed to irritate them."

Cherie's stylist, Carole Caplin, and her boyfriend, convicted con-man Peter Foster, caused enormous embarrassment to Cherie both professionally and personally, when he allegedly claimed that he was involved with the PM's wife in a property deal.

Cherie admits that, in retrospect, she may have been naïve. "But at least in the book I was able, for the first time, to tell my side of the story and what really happened. They no longer haunt me. Tony and I really believe in looking forward not back."

Among the highlights of her career, Cherie counts the birth of Leo when she was 45.

It's no secret that Cherie had volatile relationships with both the Downing Street media consultant Alastair Campbell and Prime Minister Gordon Brown and I wondered how she felt the PM was faring ahead of his attempt to regain the momentum at the Labour Party conference in Manchester. Last time around she prompted a furore when it was reported that she mouthed "that's a lie" in response to Brown's speech praising Blair - a claim she has repeatedly denied.

"This is a tough time to be PM and Gordon's coping with making some difficult decisions."

'Room for improvement'

Her lecture tonight is entitled Why Women's Rights Matter - A Better Life For All.

She says: "I've been fortunate to travel the world and see at first hand how women are treated. Even in our own country I remember being discriminated against when I was told that it was easier for them to place a man practising law than a woman. In the sixties, my mother, as a single parent, even found it difficult to get a mortgage. Although things are better, there's still room for improvement."

Now reconciled with her father, Cherie's sister, Lyndsey, has also qualified as a barrister and they have six half-sisters, including the journalist Lauren Booth. Like any mother she is proud of her own children.

"Euan is now working in the city whilst Nicky is on a teacher training course in Birmingham, Kathryn is still deciding what she wants to do and Leo, of course, is still at school."

Tony Blair once described his wife as his Bolshie Scouser and she opens her book with the story of how, as they were leaving Downing Street for the last time, she told the Press she wouldn't miss them.

"You can't resist it, can you," Tony said through clenched teeth as the door closed behind me. "For God's sake you're supposed to be dignified, you're supposed to be gracious."

But Cherie sums up: "I'm a Scouser.

"My upbringing helped mould who I am. There's an old Liverpool saying: If you can't change it, take pride in it."

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