Chapter 29
Next came the storm. Criticism of the impending Iraq War reached its peak on February 15, 2003, when thousands of people took to the streets of London in opposition to the military action. According to the police, it was the largest demonstration the UK has ever known. Criticism of Tony flooded in, and there were anti-Blair slogans everywhere. The kids were badly affected. To see their father portrayed as “B-Liar” every time they left the house was upsetting, to say the least. We shielded them as much as we could, but it was difficult. They couldn’t be wrapped in cotton wool. As all this was happening, we had a warning about a threat against Euan in Bristol. I had arranged to go down to see him for lunch on his nineteenth birthday, and I remember having to ring him up and needing to be very vague. There was a change of plans, I said. He should bring some clothes and meet me at a hotel in Bristol. Once he got there, I told him what the situation was, that there had been a threat, and that he had to go to a safe house until we found out whether the threat was real.
“But what about my party?”
“I’m sorry, but the police are insisting.”
Gary was the protection officer designated to stay with him. For the first few days the two of them were cooped up in the safe house, unable to go anywhere. After that Gary went round with him until things quieted down.
The prohibition on my seeing Carole had lapsed, largely because I rarely saw her anymore outside the gym. Alastair and Fiona wanted her cast into the outer darkness, but Tony agreed that I could still exercise with her, as long as it was done well away from the public eye. Carole had recently participated in the making of a documentary film with Peter Foster. As the woman making it was one of her clients, she thought this would be her vindication. It wasn’t. Alastair was, rightly, dead against it.
The Conman, His Lover and the Prime Minister’s Wife was broadcast in February. Watching this man who had created so much havoc in our lives was oddly gripping. On the screen he came over as a complete shyster.
Sitting through that program had an unforeseen effect on me. For the first time I found myself looking at Carole objectively and querying her judgment. She knew this man’s track record, and staying with him for the sake of the baby no longer applied. Could she really not see what a liability he was? It was nothing sudden, but over the next few months I found myself backing away from her. I went to the gym less often. As for my wardrobe, Angela Goodchild and I managed all that ourselves with the designers I had been working with for years. Unfortunately there was one last chapter still to come.
Sometime that spring, the press office from Barnardo’s, an English charity devoted to improving the lives of disadvantaged and orphaned children, got in touch with Fiona. They were launching a campaign in relation to child prostitution, they explained. The magazine Marie Claire was supporting the campaign and had asked Barnardo’s if I, as president, could give them an interview. Part of the interview would include a visit to a project in Islington that dealt with fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls. Naturally I said yes. A few days later the magazine changed its tune. It would prefer “A Day in the Life” sort of piece. Nobody was very keen — the access was unprecedented — but in the end it was agreed.
André came to do my hair that morning at eight o’clock. The Marie Claire photographer took some pictures as I left Number 10 on my way to the gym. Next stop was Matrix, where I talked with some of the team — more photos — then it was back to Number 10, where we broke for lunch. We all agreed to meet up again at 2:00 p.m. before heading off to the Barnardo’s project.
Around one-thirty Carole popped up to the flat. I had seen her at the gym that morning, and she’d suggested she come by before the afternoon session to make sure I was still looking all right. She had often done my makeup for photo shoots, so I said fine. Shortly after she arrived, the custodian rang through from the Number 10 front hall. Was I expecting some people from Marie Claire? Yes, I was.
Carole and I were upstairs when I heard voices. Peering down from the landing, I realized to my dismay that while the writer and the photographer were there, Fiona wasn’t, and that somewhere downstairs Leo was playing. The last thing I wanted was them getting into a conversation with my three-year-old son, or even seeing him. I had to act quickly to lure them away. “I’m not quite ready for you,” I called out. “You’d better come up.” Hurriedly I phoned down to Jackie and asked her to keep Leo in his room. I then phoned Angela and suggested that she come up to the flat to be introduced: anything to keep them from wandering round.
They were early, they admitted when they reached the bedroom. Carole quickly redid my makeup for the photo session that would follow downstairs. As the photographer raised her camera to take a picture, Carole put up her hand and said, “No.” As soon as I heard Angela’s voice, I took them down to the study to meet her, then suggested she might like to take them to see the garden, hoping to get them out of the flat. At that moment Fiona turned up. Except in relation to Iraq, I had never seen her so angry. Her fire was initially directed against poor Angela, who, she wrongly assumed, had let the two women in. (The poor custodian who gave them access to the building ultimately got the blame.)
A few weeks later the magazine sent over a spread of the photographs they wanted to use. I was horrified. It included the picture of Carole touching up my lipstick, even though her hand and her saying “No” is clearly visible. Worse, there was a picture of our bed. We rang the magazine immediately and said we didn’t want those particular pictures used, that they constituted an invasion of our privacy. The editor’s response was, Sorry, but these are our pictures, and we intend to use them. It turned out that Fiona hadn’t agreed that we would have picture approval. It wasn’t how Downing Street worked, she later explained. Usually she would have been present with the photographer so the situation wouldn’t arise. Except, of course, this time she wasn’t and it had.
The August issue of Marie Claire duly appeared in July 2003, and the picture of Carole retouching my lipstick became front-page news. “Lippygate” was the tabloid shorthand this time. I was really angry. It may not have been Fiona’s fault, but nonetheless she had been in charge, and I felt that, one way or another, she had landed me in this mess. It proved to be the last straw. After she left for the summer, she never returned. It was a sad ending. As someone who knew only too well the pressures I was under, because they paralleled her own with Alastair, she was invaluable, and it’s hard to imagine how I would have coped without her in those early years. I will always be grateful for that.
Meanwhile, over at Hello! magazine, Carole was breezily commenting on various outfits that I had worn since Tony had been elected, who the designers were, and so on. Providing such information had been expressly forbidden by Number 10 right from the start, and she knew it. This was the moment I finally decided that she was less innocent than I had always believed. I had been a loyal friend to her, but the time had come to call it a day.
“This is doing neither of us any good, Carole,” I told her. “As long as you are linked to me, you are not able to be independent in your own right.” All in all, we thought it best to put some distance between us. Another sad ending.
Fiona’s job was taken over by Jo Gibbons. She was quite a different character from Fiona. Jo had no interest whatever in my charity work, so she was perfectly happy for Angela and Sue to handle me on their own. From then on, they did everything, from organizing my schedule and charity events to sorting out my wardrobe and accompanying me on trips, both in the UK and abroad. They stayed with me right to end of our time in Downing Street and beyond. With this new arrangement, our little team suddenly started to work a whole lot better.
July 18, 2003, was a momentous day for Tony. On that date, he became the first British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for being “a staunch and steadfast ally of the United States.” We were allowed to take several guests to the Capitol. I invited my half sisters Jenia and Bronwen, who both live in America, and was able to introduce them to Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton. The moment Tony walked onstage, the whole audience rose and gave him the most extraordinary standing ovation. It would have been moving in any circumstances, but coming as it did after all the heartbreak and negativity, it made my heart sing.
Washington was only the first stop on our itinerary. Next came Japan, South Korea, China, and Hong Kong. For once Alastair didn’t come with us. He was increasingly disaffected, and Fiona had made it abundantly clear that they both wanted out of Downing Street. So the moment the Washington event was over, he flew back to London, while we went on to Tokyo. We were all so cheerful, happy, and laughing, and were just settling down to go to sleep, when the first call came through. A comms person came forward from the back of the plane and handed Tony the phone. It was Downing Street: David Kelly, the scientist at the center of a bitter row between Number 10 and the BBC, was missing.
A year before, Kelly, an employee of the Ministry of Defence who had been a weapons inspector in Iraq, had spoken to a BBC journalist “off the record.” In a subsequent news item on the Today program, the journalist had claimed that Number 10 — subtext for Alastair — had deliberately inserted false information about Saddam Hussein’s arsenal into the government’s weapons of mass destruction dossier, against the wishes of the intelligence service. The bosses at the BBC believed that Kelly had been the source of this information. For the past few weeks, Alastair had been involved in a hideous and very public shouting match with the BBC. They had called him a liar, and he objected very strongly to that. The “source” of the story had remained anonymous until the previous week, then Kelly had been named. And now he was missing.
Within a few hours there was another call. As I watched Tony hand back the phone, I saw him slump into his seat. David Kelly was dead, he said. His body had been found in a woodland close to his home. It was awful. He decided there and then that there had to be an investigation and spoke to our old friend Charlie Falconer, now Lord Chancellor, from the plane to see which judge might be available. I have never seen Tony so distraught, and I felt helpless to do anything. Eventually he spoke to Alastair, who had just arrived back in London. Alastair said he couldn’t handle any more and wanted out.
After a night in Tokyo during which he barely slept, Tony had a meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, while I visited a center for disadvantaged children. I found it hard to give the staff and the children the attention they deserved. We then flew by helicopter to Hakone, just below Mount Fuji. The Prime Minister had long wanted us to have a traditional Japanese experience, and the Ryuguden Hotel certainly was that. It was utterly beautiful, looking out over Lake Ashinoko and surrounded by hot springs. Koizumi is very unusual among politicians, especially Japanese politicians. He looks like the young Richard Gere and has a passion for Elvis and Cliff Richard. I had brought him a CD that Cliff had signed especially for him.
It should have been a great trip, but we realized soon enough that it was going to be quite the opposite. In the twenty-five years I had known Tony, I had never seen him so badly shaken. At the Tokyo press conference, the Mail on Sunday had shouted at him, “What is it like, Mr. Blair, to have blood on your hands?”
Our next stop was South Korea, where we had dinner with the newly elected President Roh and his wife. She was incredibly nervous, though once we got chatting, she gradually relaxed. They clearly had no idea what Tony was going through, and I tried my best to keep up the small talk. At the end of the dinner, when I admired Mrs. Roh’s earrings, she immediately took them off and handed them to me. There are strict rules in Downing Street about gifts, and anything over £140 has either to be paid for or deposited in the strong room, to be borrowed for special occasions. I couldn’t possibly take them, I told her. But she insisted. They were not expensive, she said. They had been made in Korea, and she could easily get another pair. This was her first official visit, and she wanted to thank me for making it all so easy. I took the earrings. I wear them all the time.
After a stay of only a few hours, we were on our way to Beijing. Before we left, I had time to attend Mass, where I prayed for David Kelly, for his family, and for Tony.
Throughout the trip Tony did his best to look cheerful for the sake of his hosts, but it was desperate. In Beijing we saw an installation of hand-size terra-cotta figures made by the British artist Antony Gormley. There is a photograph of the two of us taken that morning which I keep in my study: Tony crouching down among the thousands of tiny figures, me behind him, my arms around him, giving him the support he needed.
“You are a good man,” I told him as we crouched there, the cameras whirring. “And God knows your motives are pure, even if the consequences are not as you had hoped.” Tony knew that David Kelly had been a loyal public servant, driven to despair because of all the furor, caught up in something he could never have imagined.
At Tsinghua University in Beijing, we met with a group of students, who threw all sorts of questions at Tony. As we were about to leave, one last voice rang out: “Sing us a song!” From a Western perspective, this may sound like a very strange request, given the seriousness of the issues he’d been dealing with till that moment. But I have come across it often in the East — the home of karaoke. Knowing that Shanghai, our next stop, was linked to Liverpool as a sister city, they asked for a Beatles song. Tony kept saying no, then finally said, “Ask my wife. She can sing.” The atmosphere was so tense, I would have done anything to lift the mood. I gave him a look, as if to say, Is this what you really want? “Whatever you like,” he said. Then he added, “‘When I’m Sixty-four.’” So that’s what I sang. As far as I was concerned, the tour couldn’t get over fast enough.
Back in London, Alastair was going to pieces, and Tony spent half the time on the phone trying to calm him down: physically and emotionally, he was exhausted. We had lunch in Shanghai, then set off for Hong Kong. Although it was only a six-day trip, Tony seemed to age ten years. The stress was written on his face, however much he tried to keep up appearances. It wasn’t fair, he said, to take it out on these people who had put so much time and effort into our visit.
When we got to Hong Kong, we had a day’s downtime inked into our schedule — or that was the idea. However, a hurricane was on its way, and if we wanted to get out, we were told, it had to be now. The rest of the visit was canceled. As I always do (if the crew will let me), I was in the cockpit for takeoff. The wind was already picking up when the plane in front of us suddenly stopped halfway through takeoff. “If we don’t get the PM out now, he’ll be stuck here,” the pilot said. “I’m going to try.” As our speed increased, the brand-new automatic warning system kicked in: there was a buzzing; lights flashed ABORT, ABORT, ABORT; and the plane swerved. The pilot looked bemused. “That’s the first time that’s ever happened,” he said. “I’m going to try again.” Even I was scared, but this time we rose steeply into the air — over the end of the runway and above the churning China Sea — banked, and headed for home.
As a postscript to David Kelly’s tragic death, his widow and grown-up children came to visit us at Chequers. We wanted to say personally how very sorry we were about what had happened. It was clear to me that what had made the Kellys’ lives even more intolerable was the behavior of the press after he had killed himself, to the point of taking pictures through their front windows. An official inquiry later established that Kelly had leaked no information to the BBC after all.
Whatever else is going on, a visit to Balmoral is a fixed point in the Prime Minister’s calendar. Built by Queen Victoria in the valley of the river Dee, it’s where the Queen and Prince Philip spend the summer, and it’s probably the nearest thing they have to a private home.
Balmoral felt almost like a film set the first time I went there, in 1997. Everywhere I looked were stags’ heads and tartan. And being in the Scottish Highlands, it was always cold — even in the first week of September. That first year we went only for lunch, rather than the full weekend, because of Diana’s death.
The atmosphere the next year, the first year we stayed overnight, was noticeably tenser than it was in subsequent years, as 1998 marked the first anniversary of Diana’s death and William and Harry were both visiting their grandmother. Other members of the family were also in evidence. Prince Edward had just got engaged to Sophie Rhys-Jones, I remember, so they were there, as were Princess Anne and Princess Margaret, while the Queen Mother was a fixture until she died. The Queen herself was always very approachable. She has never been anything other than gracious and charming to me, and I admire her enormously. From what I’ve seen, she isn’t half as stuffy as some of her courtiers.
We usually stayed in what was known as the Prime Minister’s Suite, which was warmed by an electric heater, not dissimilar to one my grandma had in Ferndale Road. We had two rooms, one with a double bed, the other with a single. The big bed came complete with feather pillows, which, unfortunately, I am allergic to, though later these were kindly changed. Beside the bed were two bells, one marked “maid” and the other “valet.” The maid who was allocated to me the first year was very young and kept curtsying and calling me “my lady.” “Please don’t call me my lady,” I insisted, but this only flustered her more.
The visit would always start with tea, a proper sit-down affair, with the Queen at the head of a large table, in charge of an urn bubbling with water. She would make the tea herself, from putting the leaves into the pot to the pouring. To eat, there would be cucumber sandwiches, bread, Balmoral honey, and Duchy preserves. (Prince Charles, also known as the Duke of Cornwall, has a commercial venture that makes these jams and chutneys.) It was all delicately done, and the first time, I watched to see what other people did before daring to lift a finger, let alone a teacup.
At six o’clock the Queen would have her audience with Tony, so I would go back to our room to get ready for dinner. Tony would join me later. On our first visit, I was horrified to discover that my suitcase had been unpacked and everything put away in drawers or hung up. We were both puzzled by what turned out to be the traditional country-house practice of laying out the husband’s belongings in the single room. Was he supposed to sleep there? we wondered. Or was he allowed to come and visit me in my double bed?
Bath done and suitably attired, we would go downstairs. Saturday evening was usually a barbecue, but in the event of bad weather, it would be switched to a formal black-tie dinner. Although we always brought the necessary clothes for both, the barbecue was never canceled. As it was, trousers and sweaters were de rigueur, so press reports about the Queen being shocked at my wearing trousers were pure invention.
When Tony and I arrived downstairs on our first visit, it struck me that we had been invited into a private home. The Queen presumably didn’t mind at all — and certainly must have been used to it — but I couldn’t help feeling I was somehow encroaching. Yet everything looked very normal. The Queen was playing cards with the boys, and Prince Edward was tackling a crossword. Family life was just going on, and round the edges were us, the guests — not only Tony and me, but other people, too.
At one point that first year, Princess Anne came over and said something that included “Mrs. Blair.”
“Oh, please call me Cherie,” I said.
“I’d rather not,” she replied. “It’s not the way I’ve been brought up.”
“What a shame,” I said.
My relationship with the Queen’s only daughter went rapidly downhill after that and never recovered.
I got the distinct impression that the Queen Mother thought I didn’t know the first thing about protocol, and she was right. I never really got the hang of it in terms of what you call people and how you greet them. Diana I called “Diana.” Charles I called “Charles,” and in fact I would always kiss him, though I’m not convinced he really liked it. The Queen, however, was always “Ma’am.”
I would watch other people go through the rigmarole. That first weekend, Sophie Rhys-Jones was still clearly finding her feet. When Charles came in, she’d bob. When Anne came in, she’d bob. I decided I’d limit my bobbing to the Queen and the Queen Mother and leave it at that.
The highlight of the visit was undoubtedly the barbecue, though it was not remotely what I’d expected. The barbecue itself was an amazing design, and I was so impressed that I asked where it came from. The answer was unexpected to say the least: Prince Philip had designed it himself, and in fact he very kindly gave us one.
The arrangements never changed. The Queen herself would take the wheel and drive Tony and me across the moor. We’d arrive at about eight. Being so far north, it was still reasonably light, even in September. Prince Philip and his equerry (an officer allocated from one of the services, who spends about a year filling a role somewhere between private secretary, companion, and looker-after) had gone ahead, and by the time we arrived at the little house where the barbecue was held, the grouse stuffed with haggis were already on the flame. (Not traditional barbecue fare, perhaps, but something I can highly recommend.) Venison sausages also were featured regularly on the menu. Plates, cutlery, and salads in plastic containers arrived in a massive hamper on wheels, which was towed behind the Range Rover. Everyone had a job. That first year Prince Edward was in charge of the first course and did a thing with prawns. The Queen laid the table, which was set up in the kitchen near a big wood-burning stove, and I helped her. There was no electricity, and as the light faded, candles took over. There were no staff at all, except the Queen’s equerry. As the evening wore on, the light faded slowly, and we all helped clear up before driving back. It was just fabulous: wonderful landscape, completely empty, and the air so clean.
In September 2002, following the Queen Mother’s death in the spring, I asked the Queen whether she would mind if we had a picture of Leo with her, and so we did. She is very good with small children, and she liked Leo, who really loved her dogs. I remember when he was about eighteen months old, the Queen was showing him how to throw a biscuit to one of the corgis. After he successfully tossed the treat, she told him that they all had to have one now, so he took a handful and flung them across the room. The corgis went wild. “Oh,” she said, “that wasn’t quite what I meant.” But she wasn’t remotely cross at the ensuing mayhem.
By the time Leo was two and a half, he had learned the words to “God Save the Queen,” and at the end of our stay he sang it to her on his own. Her Majesty was very gracious and congratulated him. (All praise to Jackie, who had taken a lot of trouble over it.)
Leo was really the person who broke the ice at Balmoral. Once he came along, the whole atmosphere completely changed. Indeed, during our first visit I was on edge the whole time, thinking, Oh, my God, what faux pas am I going to make next? But over the years we got used to each other. The Queen was clearly very fond of Tony, and the last time we went, I was really sad to think that we would never go there again.
Whereas the Queen is very approachable, I can’t say the same about her sister, Princess Margaret, whom I met several times at Balmoral. One evening I was at the Royal Opera House for some gala performance. As I was talking to her about what we’d seen, Chris Smith came over.
“Have you met Chris Smith, our culture secretary, Ma’am?” I asked.
She peered at him.
“And this is his partner,” I continued.
“Partner for what?”
I took a breath. “Sex, Ma’am.”
She stalked off. She knew exactly what kind of partner I meant. She was just trying to catch me out.
Her niece, Princess Anne, and I similarly never found an accord. The reason, I think, was less our slightly awkward meeting when we were first introduced at Balmoral than her perception that I was was egging Tony on with a proposed ban on foxhunting. Anne had very strong feelings about the matter, which she made clear to me when Tony and I attended a state banquet at Windsor Castle while the bill was going through Parliament. Prince Charles and Prince Andrew, by contrast, who also had strong views on the subject, were extremely civilized about it.
I actually had no feelings on the issue whatsoever, but that message did not get through to the pro-foxhunting lobby. In September 2004 my fiftieth birthday party at Chequers was stormed by a group of hunt supporters. The party had been due to start at seven-thirty, but with protesters blocking the gates, only three guests somehow managed to beat the blockade. It looked as if we were in for a quiet evening.
Tony was in a pessimistic mood. “I warned you, Cherie. I told you we shouldn’t have a party in our position.” We certainly hadn’t had one the previous year for his fiftieth, because of the Iraq War.
Eventually, after inviting the leader of the protesters in, Tony charmed her into seeing reason. They had made their point, he said, so perhaps now they could unblock the road. From then on, his mood lightened considerably. Gradually the friends who had been diverted by the police to a nearby supermarket parking lot started drifting in, but it was nine o’clock before the party got going. For many of our guests, it was a strange experience: in their youth they more likely would have been on the picket line. In the end everyone agreed that this was one birthday party they would never forget, between the picketers and Tony himself up with the band and having a brilliant time, letting his hair down for what seemed like the first time in years.