OH, FOR A PRIVATE BOOTH.

What on earth is Cherie Blair up to? Why doesn’t she heed the sensible and professional PR advice about how to conduct herself which must surely be on tap, given her address? But no: in every government since 1997, regular as clockwork, some tacky Cherie-scandal unfolds, invariably evolving around what we are later told was a totally out-of-character trait and put down to ‘poor’ advice.

That’s hardly fair on the people she’s been ignoring: the poorest advice Cherie gets would seem to be that which she offers herself when frustrated by the official Alastair Campbell line, and then keenly follows. This superbright supermom, with her four children, her own set of barristers’ chambers (and thus her considerable private wealth, I hazard), her reputation as the foremost Human Rights lawyer of her generation, and her cultivated celebrity status, is displaying all the symptoms of a Hilary Clinton: a First Lady who resents being second to anyone.
And as for the nonsense this recent lecture gaffe has inspired… someone tried to draw parallels between Cherie and Denis Thatcher. Absurd. Denis, whose only true crime was to father Mark, was a model Prime Ministerial consort. Sure, the late, great John Wells made us roar with laughter portraying him as a gin-swilling golfer, but Denis never embarrassed or compromised his all-powerful partner, and seemed to know instinctively how to play the press. Cherie, on the other hand, apart from being bizarrely unphotogenic, is for ever plundering her position, using her Number 10 address as a gigantic trampoline off which she can bounce in any direction she fancies.
But it’s got to stop. Financial gain for the British Prime Minister’s wife from spin-off books and lecture tours while he’s still in office is outrageous. She must disappear. Get her head down and stay out of sight.
It’s curious where she finds the time to get into trouble. With all the mothering and judging and prosecuting and shagging she’s credited with, she ought to be too exhausted to seek the limelight.
But perhaps this is her swansong. Waiting in the wings is a replacement of such complete oppositeness and such a total contrast it’s hard to imagine. Step forward (but very tentatively please) Sarah Brown.
Who? Sarah, Gordon’s wife, of course. By all accounts also very bright, but unlike Mrs Booth Blair (as Cherie was poignantly introduced at the start of her Washington speech), Sarah has been sharp enough to realise that the last thing the Chancellor and future Prime Minister needs is the distraction of seeing his wife and child all over the tabloids. The scale of the inevitable crisis in the Labour Party which will follow the transfer of power from Blair to Brown may well be regulated by the secret weapon of Sarah. Were I asked to contribute my halfpenny’s worth on the PR front, I’d suggest it would be prudent for Gordon Brown and his family to continue exuding their fundamental and somewhat refreshing lack of frivolity.
The oh-so presidential Blairs have always given the impression they’re having far too much fun being so powerful and important, and whatever other legacies they leave, that at least has diminished the post of Prime Minister in the eyes of the country, if not the world.