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The life, times and money-making ventures of Tony Blair, Cherie Blair and The Blairios - Leo Blair, Nicky Blair, Kathryn Blair and Eaun Blair
CHERIE Blair has a new book out.
Speaking for Myself, her follow up to Speaking For My Husband, Speaking For Suicide and Bingo! is being read by the columnists.
Those Cherie Blair recommendations in full:
Fergus Shanahan (SUN): “Revenge of the grasping Mrs B”
(Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website)
Daily Star phone poll: “IS CHERIE A MONEY GRABBING WITCH?”
A PICTURE of Cherie Blair and the headline “I came back from Balmoral pregnant”.
And nine moths later baby Leo was born, the child with the wingnut ears, stuttering speech patterns and carefully arranged hair.
We journey back with Cherie, via the Sun, to 1999, and Cherie is packing for a trip to the royal house.
Says she: “This year I had not packed by contraceptive equipment, out of sheer embarrassment.”
Contraceptives are usually afforded the qualifier “device”, and Cherie’s use of “equipment” conjures images of a kit, one that possibly features a picture of Pope John Paul II, a Claire Short ringtone and a full length mirror.
Fast forward now to the eve of Cherie’s 45th birthday and there is one “shadow on my immediate horizon: My period. Where was it?”
Iraq?
“BORIS breaks the law,” announces the Mirror on its front page.
Has Boris Johnson, London mayor of mere days been caught out so soon?
Is he drinking a tincture of gin and tonic on the Tube, thus flouting his first initiative?
Nothing of it. Boris was on a bicycle. And the Mirror says that on a trip about the capital he jumped 6 red lights, mounted the pavement and failed to stop at zebra crossing.
This might say more about cyclists, who all behave in such a fashion, more than its reveals about Johnson. Indeed had Johnson been pictured not behaving so his credentials as a bona fide cyclist might have taken a hit from which they would never recover.
But it is all thin edge of the wedge.
CHERIE Blair’s autobiography is being serialised in the Sun - “the mum of four finally breaks her silence about life in Downing Street.”
The deafening sound of Cherie’s silence? Finally…
Says Cherie: “Tony used to say in terms of ability that Gordon was way ahead of everyone.
“The irony is, if they’d only worked as closely as originally agreed, Gordon’s chance would have come sooner.”
TONY and Cherie Blair have purchased the former home of the late actor Sir John Gielgud.
The South Pavilion in Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, is the Blairs’ sixth residence.
A Mr Mark Rimell, a director of country house sales for Strutt and Parker, which marketed the property after Sir John’s death there in May 2000, tells the Mail on Sunday:
“When I first viewed the property, Sir John Gielgud’s Oscar was still sitting on the windowsill in the bathroom.
“The house even had its own stage, but overall it was looking somewhat tired.”
It’s a fitting sixth home for the Blairs, especially since Mr Rimmell says the home suffers from a lack of privacy: “You can be standing in one of the public rooms of Wotton House and get a clear view of the whole garden and some of the interior of South Pavilion.”
What good a pile if the plebs can’t see the common man of the people standing in it? It’s what socialism is all about.
But what will the Blairs do with the house when they’re not in residence? Will it pay for itself?
The smart money is on Blair Towers, the New Labour theme park with:
John Prescott Croquet Lawn
John Prescott Merry Go Round - drive a peddle-powered jag around a desk and see if you can catch woman dressed as a leather KitKat
Cherie Blair Supermarket Sweep & Grabber
Jo Moore’s Burial Mound - a roller-coaster ride shaped like the Twin Towers…
* Gain free entry into the Blair holiday village by being Cliff Richard.
And many more…
MORE McCartney news in the Sun as the paper hears it emerge that “deluded Heather Mills lied that Tony Blair had offered her a peerage”.
No small shock to read that at the apogee of Cool Britannia, Tony Blair didn’t offer Lady Mills a knighthood, a job as Minister For All The Disabilities or the chance to use her spare leg as celebrity Black Rod as the state opening of Parliament.
Anorak cannot recall any offer being made, having spent the duration of Tony’s Cool Period with its hand over it eyes, fingers in ears singing the first verse to Cliff Richard’s seminal paean to youth, The Young Ones.
The Sun, though, was listening in wrapt awe, and hears how then plain Heather Mills was, as she claims, offered a “people’s peer” gong.
The claim forms a pivotal moment in ITV’s McCartney vs McCartney: The Ex Files.
On the show, Sunday Times writer Jasper Gerard, to whom she made the claim, says: “I was pretty gobsmacked that somebody who was essentially just a model and a bit of a part-time campaigner best known for being Paul McCartney’s girlfriend should be offered a peerage.”
The Sun says it’s all a lie.
But we can only say by way of defence that Tony was young and meant everything he said at the time…
THE Croydonian looks at how Jack Straw is ridding the Ministry of Justice of “meaningless” Blair legislation:
The Ministry of Justice (excuse the hollow laugh) is rather pleased with itself, judging from this press release referring to “A major clean-up of meaningless and defunct laws from the statute book is due to be launched in the House of Lords today. All or part of 328 Acts of Parliament masquerading as live laws are to be removed under the Statute Law (Repeals) Bill“.
The emphasis in the release is on East India Company issues, turnpikes and the like, so yes, a cute diary-type story, and duly picked up by the BBC, complete with a visual plug for ‘Black Adder’.
And here is the act itself, listing repeals, in part and in whole, and Blair legislation impacted includes:
- Crime and Disorder Act 1998
- Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
- Licensing Act 2003
Time offers perspective…
“REVEALED: Blair’s offer to meet masked IRA leaders,” begins the Guardian.
“Tony Blair offered to take the unprecedented step of holding secret masked meetings with the IRA as he fought to save the Northern Ireland peace process from collapse,” continues the piece.
It is one claim made by former No. 10 chief of staff Jonathan Powell, whose book is, coincidentally, serialised in the Guardian all this week. It also forms the basis of the paper’s lead leader piece. Book reviews are rarely so newsworthy.
But what of the story and news that Blair wanted to sit down for a face to balaclava chat with, well, who knows?
It could be anyone beneath the mask. Tony could be talking with the man who used to do the BBC voice for Gerry Adams, Coronation Street’s ‘Big’ Jim McDonald or just about any Northern Irishman looking for work.
(more…)
NEWSPAPERS love little more than a campaign.
It gives their columnists something to write about other then their children, and allows the paper to quote itself a source of irrefutable and expert fact.
In today’s Mirror readers learn that the paper’s No To The Toll Tax campaign has won the day. The “controversial” pay-as-you-go toll tax is to be “axed”. Satellites will not track cars and charge by the mile.
Says the Mirror’s boy racer Richard Hammond: “This is a great victory.”
“REAL CAMPAIGNS,” says the Mirror. “REAL STORIES. REAL RESULTS.” The Hammond Report gts results.
Nothing fake here. No pictures of a British squaddie urinating on his Iraqi captive. No fiction. The Mirror newspaper sticks to the real.
And the real news is that the petition Richard Hammond handed to outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair last year has had a real impact.
Not only did Blair leave power soon after, not only did Blair get to meet another celebrity, but now the Government says it has listened to the real people and the plan for an unworkable and expensive satellite tracking for all cars will not be made real.
SIMON Jenkins on Tony Blair for President::
As Jane Austen said of bachelors, a statesman is always in need of a dinner, not to mention a title and a motorcade. Besides, “leader of Europe” has an irresistible ring. It is a sure bet that, were Blair to be dragged protesting to the throne, he would not demur the crown.
To which there is only one sensible answer. Has the man never read history? His professed ambition is one that invariably ends in tears. Europe has never tolerated being led. It is a continent of cats, not dogs. Diversity is its glory, cantankerousness its defence. It is not a family or a community but a marketplace, a cultural entrepôt. Those who have sought its unity, even as a political metaphor, have come to grief.
He won’t be able to resist…
“CHERIE Blair, wife of the former prime minister, is leading a drive for prisoners to earn up to £10,000 a year doing work in jail for firms which are household names.” So reports the Times.
“She has endorsed a pilot scheme in a category C prison in which serious offenders are paid the minimum wage – £5.52 an hour – to work for companies such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Clifford Chance, the City law firm.” It light-fingered lickin’ good.
Who better to employ villains than lawyers and a take-away food shop? Perhaps call centres, with their innate fondness for small cubicles and battery-farmed workers. Or public schools.
Interestingly, because inmates pay no rent on their cells, no council tax and need incur no transport costs they could be left better off than low-paid workers outside.
In fairness, though, the Howard League for Penal Reform suggests the prisoners pay income tax, “but the government is refusing to accept contributions because the inmates might then have workers’ rights.”
The last thing you want is for a prisoner to bring a case of constructive dismissal…
THE Croydonian notes: “THE Scotsman has been surveying Caledonians on their attitudes to lurve and so forth, and it has come up with some very, very alarming figures:
“Which celebrity most closely resembles your ideal man?”
Gordon Brown - I like powerful men - 1.8%
“Which celebrity most closely resembles your ideal woman?”
Cherie Blair - powerful women do it for me - 0.9%
Based on the current population, that suggests that a truly alarming 2,218 chaps have the hots for La Booth, and a scarcely less credible 4,764 lassies are pining for the Dour One.
Stand up and make yourselves known to the group…
WHY WE DISLIKE CHERIE BLAIR - DISCUSS:
“Golly! Who would have guessed that Tony and Cherie were actually two halves of a bisected hermaphrodite?”
And then along came Cherie Blair who, at the top of her profession and with a mind of her own, represented everything that made them shudder. Once again, the gloves were off, and this time the liberal-Left misogynists were joined by Right-wingers who had been forced to button their lips in the Thatcher years.
A book published this week, The Darlings of Downing Street, subtitled ” The Psycho-Sexual Drama of Power”, seeks to turn Cherie-loathing into a science. In medical terms, it is all diagnosis and no examination, as the author, the biographer Garry O’Connor, provides little evidence and not a single note on his sources, if any.
“TONY Blair will earn around £2 million a year in his part-time role as adviser to the Wall Street bank JP Morgan without ever having to go into the office,” says the Telegraph.
“BLAIR’S £1m-A-Year PAYBACK FOR IRAQ,” thunders the Mail’s front-page headline.
Says Reg Keys, whose son was killed in Iraq: “If he had a conscience or any sensitivity he would not have taken this job.”
Chimes Conservative defence spokesman Gerald Howarth: “It will be viewed with some contempt by the armed forces that he picks up this large cheque when he was happy to send British troops into battle ill-equipped and in insufficient numbers.”
“It’s almost like blood money,” comes the headline inside the paper.
But surely if Tony is earning money and domiciled in the UK, he is paying UK taxes. His wages will go into the big pot and be used to pay for things like better guns, improved armour and more soldiers.
Like him or not, Blair has the right to earn money…
WITH a delivering his dossier to the priest – “I confess I was too honest, too radical, too daring, too honest, too loving” etc. – the Sun’s Adrian Chiles puts things in perspective.
Says Chiles: “So, our former leader has spent his first Christmas as a Roman Catholic. Oddly enough, so have I.”
Why this should be odd, we are not told. Only: “I became a Catholic last Easter. Be honest, when you read that you started thinking I’m, a bit of a nutter, didn’t you.”
Well, no. Honest. Cross our hearts and hope to die. A nutter is someone who smashes up a church, blows himself up on a crowded train, or converts to Islam or Judaism.
A poll of readers at Anorak Towers reveals that over half think Chiles is just someone wearing his religion on his sleeve, while the other half confesses to not giving a monkey’s if Chiles worships cargo planes, Satan or Gonks.
“And I’m not bothered if anyone thinks I’m barking,” says Chiles. Well, if you’re not bothered, then we can all move on…
MIKE Huckabee, US presidential wannabe, has shot a pheasant. Deliberately.
“The truth is hunters are the ones who preserve the species,” says he. “In many cases extinction comes from not having some level of hunting. It’s the hunters who actually keep the wildlife alive. A lot of people think that when you hunt you’re destroying the wildlife.”
He adds: “See that’s what happens if you get in my way.”
Over here the BBC reports that the Boxing Day hunt attracted over 250,000 participants. Hunting with dogs was banned in 2005. Under the ban, dogs can still be used to follow a scent - but cannot be used to kill the fox. People still hunt, but now with the added thrill that they might be breaking the law.
Since the ban came into force, no foxes have been saved. But new Labour found a cause it could win, and it won. It showed the world that it was radical – more radical than all Labour politicians that had passed before. Ban the bomb? A referendum on a united Europe? A paedophile amnesty? No, what we really wanted was to ban fox hunting.
Here was something that would play out well in the media. Save the cuddly fox. Kill the fat upper-class twit on his horse. Kill the horse, the collaborator.
The protestors besiege the House of Commons. It looks good on the telly. One PR stunt in head on collision with another. This is no uprising. The purpose is to be heard. It is the kind of narcissism that causes disgruntled dads to wear Spiderman pyjamas and under the banner Fathers 4 Justice (“when there is a banner) make public nuisances of themselves.
Ban foxhunting. Save fox hunting. Kill germs. Save the germs. Would The League Against Cruel Sports mind if we killed wasps? Wasps are not as cuddly as foxes. But, then, have you ever cuddled a fox, a creature that looks like a maiden aunt’s coat with sharp teeth and a shifty, narrow stare.
So Huckabee shoots a pheasant and looks tough. And Tony Blair saves the fox and looks tough. And the dumb animals nod…
