CHERIE BLAIR INTERVIEW - Wednesday 28th May, 2008
Remember
that marvellous old British comedy, 'Till Death Us Do Part'? It was a
hoot, sort of 'Kath and Kim' meets 'Coronation Street', with a
wonderfully wry political edge. Warren Mitchell as the working-class
monarchist was the star, and his son-in-law, a Bolshie bugger, was
played by actor Tony Booth. Where's all this leading? To Tony Booth's
daughter, Cherie. No longer Booth, these days Cherie Blair. That Cherie
Blair. Last week, the outspoken, to the point of foot-in-the-mouth wife
of the former British PM released her autobiography 'Speaking for
Myself'. Dateline talked with Cherie from London.
GEORGE NEGUS: Cherie, if you don’t mind me calling you that,
we feel we know you well enough to do that, I have to say, I have been
around for some time. I have your book in my hand at the moment. I have
to say, I don't think I have seen a book or a person lashed so
savagely, so viciously, so vitriolically in all of my years as a
journalist. Why do they love you so much in the UK?
CHERIE BLAIR: Oh, George, it is one of these things that it is
just the
way it is at the moment. What's interesting, I think, about the
coverage about the book is there is a clear divide between the people
who have read the book and the people who haven't read the book and
maybe have only read some of the extracts or maybe haven't even
bothered to read the book at all, and then I have had some pretty
negative coverage, but that is just the way of the world, isn't it?
GEORGE NEGUS: Yeah, we googled, as people do these days, and I
was
quite amazed, to be honest. How do you react - you appear to be a
pretty normal, sensitive person - to be described as a "vain,
self-regarding, shallow thinking viper"? Hello? What do they really
think about you?
CHERIE BLAIR: That is rather... yeah, that's my friends. No,
it is
true, I am only human. And therefore I tend not to read the ones that
are really bad, because, really, why upset yourself? The truth is, so
many people think they know me and so many people have spoken about me
and I thought the time had come when actually I could speak for myself.
GEORGE NEGUS: Do you think it is possibly the media is getting
back at
you, because as you were departing, you and Tony, from Number 10, you
did say, "I am not going to miss you lot."
CHERIE BLAIR: Well, I told that story in the book, in fact,
and of
course it was partly a joke because we had just come - if you remember
- we had just said goodbye, a rather tearful goodbye to all the great
people in Downing Street, you know, the people who had served all the
prime ministers, whoever they are, and who for the past 10 years had
become part of our extended family and had gone through my pregnancy
with Leo with me and seen the children growing up. So there was a very
fond farewell to people whom I loved. And then the press, a group of
them started shouting to me, you know, "Oh, Cherie," Some of them
actually meant it, and others were saying, "Oh, you won't miss us, will
you," and I just responded. And when I got into the car Tony said, "Oh,
you can't resist it, can you?" And of course as usual.
GEORGE NEGUS: Yeah, I notice that he wasn't actually thrilled
to bits
that you had reacted away. He thought you should have been a little
more gracious and dignified, I think were his words.
CHERIE BLAIR: Gracious and dignified. And he was absolutely
right,
because this was his day and he had done such a fantastically dignified
exit, so it really didn't need a remark from me. But you know, as I say
in the book as well, I think he forgives me because he always does.
GEORGE NEGUS: Given the reaction to your book, which as you
acknowledge
has been pretty rugged from many parties
CHERIE BLAIR: 'Mixed', I think, would be the word I would use,
'mixed',
yeah.
GEORGE NEGUS: But given the reaction, and I read somewhere
that you
were quite - you recognised the fact that the reaction wasn't quite
positive and you were a bit shocked by it - interestingly enough, one
of the things the press did say was that you had - probably quite
rightly, many people would think - complained about the press intruding
into your life, invading your privacy, as it were, and they feel that
what you have done by being so open and frank about your own private
life, including what goes on between consenting adults in the middle of
the night - nullifies all that. It is almost a hypocritical, one writer
said, that you should complain on one hand about the way they behaved
and now be terribly tell-all about your own life in your book.
CHERIE BLAIR: George, as you know, I'm a lawyer, so I know a
lot about
where the line draws between privacy and even people in the public eye
have a right to keep some things back and not talk about everything, so
I haven't certainly talked about everything. But the important thing
for me was to be honest, because I thought that so much had been
written about me, again by people who had not met me and seen me, that
I wanted to be honest. And actually, in the 21st century, I think we
talk as men and women about our lives and our relationships differently
than perhaps we did in the 1950s. And I think that is a good thing too.
GEORGE NEGUS: Do you think it's a particular characteristic or
just the
fact that you are so straightforward?
CHERIE BLAIR: One of the interesting things that people, I
think, tend
to forget - because Tony was only, you know, he was what –
40, 44 when we went into Number 10, so he was the youngest prime
minister of the century, so this was a completely different ball game.
This was a young man with a young family and had a wife. I was the
first wife of the prime minister's ever to have gone to university.
Now, that is not because the other spouses of the prime ministers were
not clever, not intelligent, not articulate men and women. The fact is,
education and the changing opportunities for women gave me those
opportunities so I ended up as this working class girl living in Number
10 Downing Street, meeting the Queen, and for a good Catholic girl
meeting not just Pope John Paul II, but also Pope Benedict, and even
having Stevie Wonder singing 'Mon Cherie Amore' for me at the Clinton
White House. I mean, how fantastic and how lucky is that?
GEORGE NEGUS: That is almost worth all the trouble, isn't it?
CHERIE BLAIR: Well, listen, I don't regret a single minute of
it. It
was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity and a wonderful privilege and I
am just so grateful.
GEORGE NEGUS: Let's talk politics for a moment. The suggest
that Gordon
Brown you saw almost as the enemy and that this book, because of your
openness and honesty about your feelings towards the Brown problem, as
you describe it, which you acknowledge, is doing Gordon Brown the very
worst at a point in time where he is really on the back foot
politically, where Labour could be political history in the country.
CHERIE BLAIR: I can assure you, I have no doubt whatsoever
that Labour
is not political history and that we will see this fantastic Labour
government moving on. I have been there in Number 10 so I know what it
is like. In all political life there are ups and downs and they come
and they go, but what is important is what the government is offering.
But of course you are right, I was telling the story from the
perspective of Tony's wife. Now, I thought from the beginning, as I say
in the book, that he was the right person for the job. In 1994, when he
became the Labour leader, the fact was I was not the only person that
saw he was already ahead in the polls and that was something which
pleased me, though it was also a challenge for me, because at the time
I did not realise - I knew being Labour leader would change Tony's life
but I did not realise what an impact it would have on me on the
children. I was rather naive, I thought we would just plod on and that
no-one would pay any attention to us.
GEORGE NEGUS: Things are looking bleak for Gordon Brown and
the Labour
Party at the moment, you have to admit that?
CHERIE BLAIR: Every government that has lasted 11 years has to
show the
electorate it still has something to offer, as this Labour Government
has. Political life goes up and down, but the public and the elections
in the end are very fair-minded and they judge people according to the
whole of what they had done and not just on yesterday's poll.
GEORGE NEGUS: There was one very interesting thing you said
about Tony
and the Iraq issue, you said that he actually acknowledged to you he
had a crisis of confidence and in fact that could have been from that
moment on the beginning of the unravelling of the Blair phenomenon as
it were. His popularity went down, the party stocks went down.
CHERIE BLAIR: I think that you have got to understand that all
politicians are human and there is nothing harder in life than to have
to take decisions which are effectively really serious decisions, and
of course the Iraq war was a serious decision. Tony would not be human
if he did not question himself and he would not be the sort of man that
he is, caring deeply about right and wrong, and as I said in the book,
a religious person who cared about these things, if he did not question
himself. That is one of the things I love about him. But he is very
honest and that he does questions himself, but I knew he was picking
the right decisions, I trusted him and the British people trusted him
and re-elected him in 2005.
GEORGE NEGUS: Do you think that might have been the single
greatest
mistake he did make? A lot of people do believe that was an error to be
involved in Iraq.
CHERIE BLAIR: I do not believe that either Australia or the
United
Kingdom made a mistake in supporting the Americans in Iraq and doing
what they did to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, who in any view was a
terrible man, he did terrible things to his own people, let alone being
a threat in the region.
GEORGE NEGUS: True, but we're still living with the
consequences of
those actions.
CHERIE BLAIR: But of course, but every decision that a
politician takes
is not just a decision that has an implication for today and not for
tomorrow. I think we should never forget that behind the public figure
and behind the closed doors there are real people there who are
struggling just like everybody else to try and do what is right.
GEORGE NEGUS: Does he miss being prime minister?
CHERIE BLAIR: He is very very busy at the moment - I often
joke that I
must be the only woman whose husband leaves a difficult high profile
and dangerous job for one that in many ways could be described as more
difficult and dangerous too. The only difference really is that when
you are Prime Minister you can't ever really leave your country for
very long, so we had the benefit of having Tony around and living above
the shop. Now of course that he is concentrating on the Middle East, he
is away from home more often and therefore, more ironically, we see him
less than we used to.
GEORGE NEGUS: Cherie Blair, thanks for your time.
CHERIE BLAIR: Thank you George