Speaking for Myself (21 page)

So much was going on, and I was so focused on the job at hand — which was getting Tony to stand and then getting everyone to support him — that perhaps it’s not surprising that I forgot about my own role. The “Hang on a minute, if all this is going to happen, I’m going to be a bit in the public eye” moment was late in arriving. One evening, shortly after Tony had decided to stand, the phone rang.

“Hi there, Cherie. Great to hear your voice after so long. So how are you doing?”

It was Carole Caplin.

Chapter 15

Nearly There

W
hen Carole called, I couldn’t have been more delighted. The twin spindles of my life — politics and the Bar — were rather incestuous, but Carole was completely separate. More to the point, I was still anxious to lose the extra fourteen pounds.

She came round to the house the following Saturday.

“Well, this is all very exciting, isn’t it?” she said, as she came in. Her call hadn’t been entirely serendipitous. She’d just returned from New York and knew all about what was happening. She wondered if I needed some advice on hair and makeup. I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I went to the same hairdresser I’d been going to for years, and as for makeup I just went to Boots, our low-priced pharmacy chain. It would be useful, she said, if we could look through my wardrobe; it would help her determine my style. I didn’t really have a style. My clothes divided into two types: casual things to hang round the house in, such as leggings, baggy tops, tennis shoes, and the occasional long skirt; and barrister suits, mainly black or blue, always with skirts, as trousers were not allowed. My work shoes had heels, but they were reasonably chunky, as I spent a lot of time on my feet, both in court and traveling. I also had the odd fashionable dress, which I bought from someone called Ivona Ivons, who ran a shop near one of the courts. She would sort me out a couple of suits for work, perhaps a dress at the same time, and that was that.

I wasn’t uninterested in clothes, but I didn’t read fashion magazines or keep up with the latest styles. I’d just pop along to Ivona, and whatever was in that year I’d have. I was reasonably objective about my body. My strong points were my hair, which I had in abundance, and my skin. I had always had a neat bust and a small waist, but I had big hips and thighs, so on the whole I avoided trousers, as I thought my bottom was too big. Although I tried to look nice, we had three small children and two houses to keep up, so shopping for me was bottom of the list. The exception was work clothes. Operating in such a public arena, I needed to look sharp. Shoes were not a priority. It wasn’t as if Tony and I went out to restaurants or clubs. Our social life consisted of seeing friends and just sitting around a kitchen table, talking. As most of our friends also had young kids, it was hardly a competitive environment.

I didn’t have either the time or the knowledge even to think about changing my image. Looking at my wardrobe through Carole’s eyes, however, I could sense what was coming. “I think you could do with some help,” she said. Of course she was right. Everything was connected, she said: my weight, my clothes, my food. It would take time, but she was convinced that I could begin to see some improvements quickly, certainly in the couple of months we had before the results of the leadership election were announced. We started immediately. She spent the rest of the afternoon at the house.

The first thing that needed attention was what I ate, which soon extended to everyone in the family, as she chucked out half the things in the kitchen. She opened the cupboards and went through everything, saying, “This is bad; this is good.” (It was short-lived. The kids would have none of it. Within days the cupboards were restored to their former glory.)

Once that was done, we went upstairs to the sitting room to go over an exercise plan. There was no time to lose. Since I had done her workshops five years previously, I already had the basics, but this was specific. While we were doing this, she met Tony and suggested an exercise plan for him as well.

My wardrobe came in for the same treatment as the kitchen cupboards, and most of what I had went straight into garbage bags. She made me put on some things before making a decision. Long jackets were more flattering, she said. I should go for low necks rather than high necks. Heels were good, and I should wear more of them. On the one hand, it was a fairly horrifying spectacle; on the other hand, it was probably for the best. By nature I’m a hoarder, and this was something that needed to be done. “If you can’t remember when you last wore it, chuck it” was one of her mantras.

To sharpen my eye, Carole took me shopping. Browns, on upscale South Molton Street in London, was a revelation. It was the first time I had been anywhere so obviously fashionable. But she was right about making an immediate improvement. I wore the dress I bought at Browns to a party midway through the leadership campaign and bumped into Fiona Millar, the daughter of Audrey Millar, at whose house I had attended meetings of the Marylebone Labour Party years earlier. She was feeling particularly frumpy, she said, as she’d only recently had a baby girl with her partner, a political journalist named Alastair Campbell, who would later play a large role in Tony’s life. “But as for you, Cherie, you’re looking great. Much more — how shall I put it? — groomed!” How we laughed.

The question of the deputy was still in the air. John Prescott and Margaret Beckett were standing both for the leadership and for deputy leader. The aim was to find the best balance. Tony’s membership of the T & G was not treated with any great seriousness, and he was not seen as a union man. He’d got them to accept that the closed-shop agreement would not be reinstated, and he wouldn’t be remembered fondly for that. On the other side, he had pushed through a minimum-wage policy. Peter Kilfoyle (MP for Liverpool Walton), Anji, and I were keen on John Prescott — very much a union man — who we felt would make for more of a contrast. Gordon was keen on Margaret Beckett. But it would depend entirely on who won the ballot.

July 21, when the results of the leadership election were to be announced, was a lovely summer day, and come what may, I knew it was important that I look my best. I also had discovered how much more confident I felt when I looked the part.

Downstairs at Richmond Crescent, the combined Blair and Booth clans were gathering. While I was getting ready upstairs, the kids gave me a running commentary about the scruffy-looking types hanging round on the pavement opposite, men mostly, loaded down with cameras and camera bags.

About half an hour before we were due to leave, Tony had a word with them and agreed to do some pictures. He suggested the park behind the house where he and the kids often played soccer. So the photographers got us to sit on a bench while they snapped away: Tony and me looking at each other, Tony looking at the camera and me looking at Tony, and so on. It was the first time I had ever done anything like it. The nearest I’d got to experiencing any kind of press interest was at Pat Phoenix’s funeral, when I’d led my father into the church.

The oddest thing of all was being called Mrs. Blair, as they shouted out instructions. Most people called me Cherie. My colleagues at the Bar certainly did, as did those involved with the Labour Party, where I was very much a person in my own right. Even at the children’s school, where mothers might be expected to be called Mrs. Whoever, I was known by my Christian name, as both teachers and the head knew me primarily as a school governor. On a day-to-day level the only people who didn’t call me Cherie were the clerks. To them I was Miss Booth.

Tony’s union, the T & G, had provided a car to take us down to the Westminster Institute of Education, where the results would be announced. The candidates all lined up on the stage, and when I saw Tony’s face, I knew he was victorious. He had come top, in fact, in all sections, including the union one, which our people had speculated might prove more difficult. John Prescott was duly elected deputy leader, so it couldn’t have been better. Then it was time to celebrate. Cars took us the short distance to Church House, a conference center just behind Westminster Abbey. It was a beautiful afternoon, and both the building and the square outside were thronged with supporters. We were taken straight upstairs and out onto the balcony, where Neil and Glenys Kinnock were already waiting.

Tony made his leadership acceptance speech, in which he thanked everybody who’d worked so hard for his campaign. Although Margaret Beckett had just lost to both Tony and John Prescott, she and her husband, Leo, came up with a warm and ready smile to thank Tony for what he’d said and to wish him well. Just as she was leaving, she added, “I nearly forgot. Sylvie will be waiting for you outside.”

I thought,
Sylvie? Who is Sylvie?

Sylvie turned out to be the backup driver for the Leader of the Opposition. While Margaret had been standing in as leader, she had been driven round in the official car. No one had said anything to us about there being a car. From then on, whenever Tony was involved in official business, either Terry, who became a true family friend, or the wonderful Sylvie would drive him round.

The next day Terry was waiting outside in the Rover to take Tony to the House. And this became the routine: If I was up early enough, I’d get a lift, and they’d drop me at Gray’s Inn, which was directly on their route. Similarly, when they were about to leave, I’d get a call, and if I was ready to go, I’d be waiting on the pavement when the familiar red Rover drew up.

The office of the Leader of the Opposition was far grander than anything Tony had had before, certainly in size. It’s at the heart of the Palace of Westminster itself, not far from where the Prime Minister has his office on the opposite side of the courtyard. The suite of rooms included the Shadow Cabinet room. Tony decided to use the office Neil Kinnock had used when he was leader; John Smith’s was piled high with boxes of papers waiting to be dealt with. After all the excitement over Tony’s election, it was a sober reminder.

Tony asked me to take a look at the room he proposed using, and I was not impressed. It was in serious need of redecoration. The House of Commons offered to get it done, but Tony declined. “I don’t intend to stay here very long,” he said. “I don’t want to make these rooms too comfortable, because I don’t want to get too comfortable in opposition.” The aim was to get into government as soon as possible.

With this in mind, Tony was pretty clear that he wanted Alastair Campbell to join the team as press secretary. Alastair was a political journalist, and Tony had got to know him in the House of Commons when Alastair was a correspondent for the
Daily Mirror,
a popular tabloid newspaper. Although a Labour man through and through, he was never interested in policy, and he had never been part of our discussion groups.

When Peter Mandelson first sounded Alastair out for Tony, he said no. Then Tony talked to Alastair himself a few days after he moved into his new office. Alastair was equivocal, Tony told me, though Tony thought he could be persuaded. When Tony is determined, nothing will stop him, and on this he was determined. We were about to set off for what had now become our usual holiday in France, dropping in on friends. As Alastair and Fiona were spending the summer in a house in Provence, Tony proposed to go down there and talk him into it. He would convince Alastair, and I would convince Fiona. That, at any rate, was the idea. The parents of one of Tony’s researchers, Tim Allan, had just bought a cottage in Tuscany, and Tim suggested that we go there for a week or so. We could drop in on Alastair on our way there.

Originally we had started going to France because of Tony’s fear of flying. By sheer willpower, however, he’d succeeded in overcoming that, and now we went because it had become a tradition. Some of our old Hackney neighbors had bought a house together in a village called Miradoux, north of Toulouse, in western France. It was a complete wreck, and over the years we had joined in cheerfully, helping to pull it into some sort of shape. But with three growing children, we found it a bit cramped. Then in 1992 David Keene had come to the rescue. David, one of my partners at work, had recently bought a place in the Ariège, just south of Toulouse. We could go there whenever we liked, he said.

David’s “place” turned out to be a château in a village called St. Martin d’Oydes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. To the delight of the kids, it boasted a swimming pool, and as there was plenty of room, Mum and the nanny could come, too. In later years Lyndsey and her family would sometimes join us.

Children like going back to familiar places, seeing familiar faces, and the trips gave Tony and me an opportunity to spend time with each other and with our friends. For years we visited these same two houses, so it’s hard to remember what happened when and where. There was the time, I remember, when we sang “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things” for what seemed like hours to drown out a storm that threatened to engulf Miradoux, with the fire engine across the road clanging a merry accompaniment. One year David’s swimming pool turned bright green. That didn’t stop the Blair family from swimming in it. Swimming was a favorite activity. Our nanny Ros would devise complicated galas — “the summer Olympics,” as they were known — which involved convoluted races, “biggest splash” competitions, even the “funniest wet hairstyle” competition, which Tony regularly won. For him, being in surroundings in which he felt so completely at home, practicing his French at the local shops and cafés, playing tennis, and eating out in the local restaurants were the perfect antidote to our busy life in England. There was nobody to collar him on the street; no need to dress the part. He could slob around in shorts and a T-shirt to his heart’s content. A true holiday.

Flassan, where Alastair and Fiona had their house, turned out to be as far away from the foothills of the Pyrenees as it’s possible to be in France. Tony decided that the drive would be too daunting, so we dropped off the hired car and took the train from Toulouse to Avignon. It’s not a journey I’d recommend. We arrived at Avignon late at night, the children understandably grumpy, to find an equally grumpy Alastair waiting for us. We piled into his car for a drive of over an hour into the hills.