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26th September, 2008
CHERIE – “A FORCE OF NATURE” – ON MISSING TONY
“Tony is away much more with his Middle East job than he used to be and Leo and I miss him. I must be one of the few women whose husband has had a difficult and demanding job and has then moved on to another difficult and possibly dangerous job.
“But you can’t worry about it. Tony is really determined to do all he can to help solve the problem of Israel and Palestine. I know he has a lot more potential.”
Cherie Booth-Blair celebrated her 54th birthday a couple of days ago. Here this interview reveals her fears, but acceptance of her husband’s present lifestyle. But mainly the fact that she and the little one miss him on his worldwide travels. (So do a lot of us, Cherie!) It seems she couldn’t bear to spend her birthday without him and travelled out to the USA to celebrate it. Good for her, and lucky for him. Absolutely!
Article follows:
26 September 2008
Cherie Blair is a force of nature. chatting with her on the phone, she laughs loudly and freely. A couple of hours earlier she was speaking at a conference about mothers’ fears for young people in society today. But now she is relaxed and enthusing about buying cushions and enjoying her new kitchen at Connaught Street.
This is the London house where she and Tony have lived since walking away from Number 10, their home for the extraordinary decade that followed her husband’s landslide election victory in 1997.
The self-proclaimed “over-enthusiastic Scouser” was never the type to fade quietly into the background. Despite being a world-class QC, Cherie was more often frequenting the headlines for her friendship with style guru Carole Caplin, the Bristol flats saga, her relationship with the Royal Family, alleged comments about Gordon Brown during his conference speech… the list of reasons that set Downing Street cringing went on.
And the publication of her often-candid autobiography earlier this year, Speaking For Myself, put her straight back into the news, for its intimate revelations about early love affairs, Leo’s conception, plus, of course, more thoughts on Brown.
Now Cherie is coming to Norwich, on Monday as opener for the University of East Anglia’s autumn literary festival.
“I’m looking forward to it; people ask such interesting questions. They are curious, and being a curious creature myself I can appreciate that.
“My sister has a house not far from Norwich, so I have been to the county many times,” she reveals. “I always used to think of myself as a city girl, but over the years I have appreciated the quietness of the country.
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| The first photograph of the Blairs at Number 10 – one of the pictures in Cherie Blair’s autobiography, Speaking For Myself. |
“I did, of course, come up to Norwich to open a legal aid office there when I was pregnant with Leo and I was really sick on the train on the way up. I didn’t want to tell anyone, because no-one knew about the pregnancy at that point. I managed to do the best I could to sort myself out in those tiny toilets you get on the trains, and no-one realised!”
Such insights into the strange world of Cherie spill across the pages of Speaking For Herself, a book I suggest is all the more entertaining because of what she has chosen to omit.
“I think there are so many things you do in life that are tied up with other people, and you have to be careful not to trample over other people’s lives,” she explains.
“Living all those years in Downing Street, it taught me never to be surprised by the unexpected, although I must admit I was surprised with some of the reactions to the book. Not from the public – I got some fantastic letters – but some members of the press seem to have written about the book they would have liked me to have written rather than what I actually wrote.
“I wanted to write a woman’s book, an honest account. And the reasons I wrote about my pregnancies and everything else is because that is what I am,” she says defiantly. “If we met as friends, this is what we would talk about.
“It’s really one woman’s journey over 50 years and about how far women have come in that time. I think that is an important message to pass on to my children.
“I suppose I was someone who reflected the reality of life for women of a time that Tony was prime minister. My life was much more public, but the fact is that I am a working mother and from a generation able to achieve so much more than our mothers and grandmothers might have been able to.”
We spoke earlier this week, on the eve of her 54th birthday. She’s been missing Tony, who is currently in New York with his eponymous old pal Bill for the Clinton Global Initiative. “Tony is away much more with his Middle East job than he used to be and Leo and I miss him. I must be one of the few women whose husband has had a difficult and demanding job and has then moved on to another difficult and possibly dangerous job.
“But you can’t worry about it. Tony is really determined to do all he can to help solve the problem of Israel and Palestine. I know he has a lot more potential.”
And so, her Tuesday birthday was to be spent – not, surprise, surprise, at Manchester listening to Gordon Brown’s “make or break” speech at the Labour Party conference – but flying across the Atlantic to be with her husband.
“He thinks I am a bit soppy really, but Tony has his moments too!” she chuckles.
I tell her that the result of a poll of Labour MPs to find their greatest hero in the party’s history has just been announced, putting Tony joint fifth with Neil Kinnock. Clement Attlee came top, followed by Keir Hardie, Aneurin Bevan and Barbara Castle.
“It is an interesting list, that’s for sure,” Cherie comments. “If they’d asked me, of course, Tony would have been number one. I think Tony is the best post-war prime minister we have had – but that is not a totally unbiased view.”
Brown just made it in at joint tenth. “Maybe his name wasn’t on the list,” says Cherie, without missing a beat.
“Tony would say that during our time at Number 10, I became more diplomatic than he thought I was ever capable of being! I did try… although I didn’t always succeed.”
So will she comment about Brown’s chances of holding on to the leadership for much longer? “I have been there and written the book,” she says. “In politics there are ups and downs and you learn to ride through them. At least Gordon knows he has got Sarah and the children behind him and that is the most important thing.”
Having lived in “the goldfish bowl” for 10 years she has no intention of “doing a Hilary” and embarking on a political career of her own, although this was an early ambition for the daughter of theatrical parents – her father, of course, was Tony Booth of Till Death Do Us Part fame.
“Along time ago I conceded that my husband was a much better politician than me and I was a better lawyer. Having said that, I have been very lucky and been able to meet people across the world and I certainly want to put that to good use.”
So, in the light of her own experience, if in years to come daughter Kathryn – currently studying law – announced to the family that she was considering marrying the future prime minister, what advice would she give her? “I would laugh and tell her to go for it!
“I think there is a real danger that if we make people so concerned about what it is like being in public life, then we might discourage some very talented people from taking it on.
“But it was unexpected that there would be so much interest in me. And Downing Street did find it very hard to change their view of what the wife of the prime minister was there for – it took them a long time to adjust to what I was there for.
Despite the internal tensions, the media attention and her own “gaffes” as she refers to them, her time at Number 10 was undeniably extraordinary.
“I would not change it for the world. I think how lucky can you be, as a Catholic girl to meet two popes, to have Stevie Wonder sing My Cherie Amour..?
“But the pictures couldn’t have been much worse. At least when people meet me, the most common reaction is ‘You look much better in the flesh’.
“The one thing I didn’t miss after we left was when Carla Bruni came to visit,” she admits, recalling the attractive new wife of French president Nicholas Sarkozy. “I certainly didn’t miss having to be the poor unfortunate woman standing next to her outside Number 10! I was glad I could pass that particular challenge on to the next woman.”
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Tags: 1. Tony Blair, Cherie Booth, Cherie Booth / Blair, cherie's birthday, missing tony
September 26, 2008 at 10:44 am |
[...] keeptonyblairforpm wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptCherie Booth-Blair celebrated her 54th bbirthday/b a couple of days ago. Here this interview reveals her fears, but acceptance of her husband’s present lifestyle. But mainly the fact that she and the little one miss him on his worldwide b…/b [...]