2nd November 1997

From daughter of someone to wife of someone

Since the election, Tony Blair’s wife has had to be two people at once: Cherie Booth the QC, and Cherie Blair, first lady to an increasingly presidential Prime Minister. Over the past few days she has been swapping personas, from Booth to Blair, as often as the models at London Fashion Week have switched outfits.

Take a week in mid-September. On Sunday she became godmother to the youngest child of her Islington friends Stephen and Felicity Mostyn Williams, spending most of the afternoon at the christening. On Monday, Mrs. Blair launched a breast cancer campaign from No. 10. The following day, Ms. Booth was in the headlines for calling on the Bar to be less elitist, while Wednesday saw her winning a case for a woman with dyslexia. Then Mrs. Blair presented a Grandparent of the Year award and chaired the annual Bar conference. Later however, Cherie Booth became Mrs. Tony Blair for the whole week - at the Labour Party conference in Brighton. An intelligent and articulate woman turned into a mute and adoring wife. The conference is one of the worst weeks of the year for her. A woman who lives on her eloquence and charms with her wit must observe a convent silence. Commentators denied the chance to discuss her views instead dissect her clothes, her hairstyle, her make-up — and most of all, her body language which some interpret as pained. It cannot be easy.

“Party conference is not number one in her list of favourite occupations,” a friend says. “But she just puts on a different hat and smiles and gets on with it. She’s a great getter-onner.

Since the election, that is precisely what Ms. Booth has had to do. There were those who doubted her ability to continue at the Bar after Labour won power. They feared for her safety, they worried about conflicts of interest. Some simply disapproved of a Prime Minister’s wife having a career. To prove them wrong, she has just got on with it, ploughing through attendant reporters and photographers to argue her case.

But although she keeps her arguments for court her continuing career has become a statement in itself. A poll of sixth-form girls put her top of their list of ‘superwomen’ role models. It is a term much abused, but for this successful barrister the wig may fit.

The balancing act, however, is never easy. Within 24 hours of May 1, while Mr. Blair was dispensing great offices of state, Cherie was learning to cope with living above the office. It was more than just another upheaval. Managing the move from Islington, with the family’s taste in furnishings under scrutiny, was hardly the ideal way to wind down after six weeks of electioneering.

Downing Street is not exactly a cosy family home. The flat above No. 11 is big enough but still fairly institutional. The move has not been without its political complications. Wrangles over rooms with next-door neighbour Gordon Brown have, according to insiders, strained relations between Mr. Blair’s wife and his Chancellor. But Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country retreat, is a sanctuary for the family, where they can properly relax. Weekends are cherished, for while maintaining a private life was hard enough in Opposition, it has proved almost impossible in Government.

Privacy is something that the Blairs have come to value. The Prime Minister is protective of his wife, both are ferociously protective of their three children. Cherie, herself the daughter of a famous father (the actor Tony Booth) knows the dangers of growing up in the flashgun’s glare.

They try to lead as much of a family life as possible in the circumstances. The Prime Minister aims to go upstairs from his office at about 7 pm to see the children; Cherie is often not back until later. In the mornings, the Prime Minister can no longer drop off the children at the Tube as he used to, so Cherie pays for them to be driven to school. Relatives and a nanny help to share the childcare burden. As well as continuing her legal practice, Cherie has managed to fit in charity work, engagements with her husband and responsibility for the running of the household. Friends joke that she is as likely to pull a packet of pasta out of her briefcase as an affidavit. One says: “She’s unflappable—that’s her real strength. She has enormous stamina.” Steely robustness was demonstrated by her return to the courtroom just days after her daughter was delivered by Cesarean section.

Being the wife of the Prime Minister calls for psychological as well as physical stamina. You cannot open your door to a delivery man in a nightdress. You cannot go to the supermarket without being photographed and having your choice of chunky knit analysed. Worst of all, you cannot assert your intelligence without people assuming that you want to run the country. Or already do. Those determined to make Mrs. Blair the Modernisers’ Messalina have tried to suggest she is a home-grown Hillary Clinton. But however justified stateside suspicions may be about who really wears the chinos in the White House, the parallels do not hold.

Both Hillary and Cherie are lawyers with progressive husband’s who like soft rock. But then so are half the women in Islington and many of the wives in Washington. The similarities between the two end there. When Bill Clinton ran for office, he boasted that voters would get “two for the price of one.” He allowed his wife to help to choose his Government and he then put her in it, with responsibility for reforming healthcare. It was a disaster and one the Blairs have no intention of repeating.

Cherie did once have political ambitions of her own and stood unsuccessfully for Thanet North in 1983. But she and her husband had a pact; if one got into Parliament, the other would stay at the Bar to support the family. Once he won Sedgefield, she disengaged from active politics and returned to law. She has no wish to be the Prime Minister’s back-seat driver. Nonetheless, political enemies are waiting for the opportunity to paint her as a Lady Macbeth. Advisers have tried to forestall that danger with a series of softening exercises. But in order not to appear threatening she runs the danger of “dumbing down.” Guest-editing Prima magazine, knitting patterns and all, before the election provoked ridicule as much as respect.

Charity work on behalf of breast cancer patients or battered women is acceptable. So is talking about the law. But, if she were to give other interviews, her words would run the risk of being distorted and she would lose any right she still has not to be treated as a public figure.

However uncontentious the issues she embraces, there is always the danger that she will make a “gaffe” that will remain on the cuttings files for ever. For a woman who rose by eloquence and intelligence it has become dangerous to demonstrate too much evidence of either.

In court, on the other hand, she is in her element. As a barrister, she prefers cool reason to verbal pyrotechnics. When she occasionally sits on the Bench, as an assistant recorder, observers say she deploys a sympathetic manner, taking care to put witnesses at their ease.

Because of her duties as Mrs. Blair, though, Cherie may find that her next step on the legal ladder is barred to her. She had an ambition to be a judge, an obvious move after years as a senior barrister. The trouble is that legal terms are fixed, and judges have to be available for sittings all term. They cannot plead for time off to attend a G7 economic summit or to fit in some devolution campaigning.

For an intelligent woman, however, there are ironies in her position. When she had political ambitions, they must surely have been to be First Lord of the Treasury, not first lady. Academically and at the Bar, she has achieved everything possible: four “A” grades at A level, top First in her year, top of her Bar exams, and appointed one of the country’s youngest QCs at her first attempt.

Yet still she is outshone by her husband. As she once remarked, “I started life as the daughter of someone. Now I am the wife of someone.

If she were almost anyone else’s wife, she might be the star of the couple. It is a tribute to her that she has handled her position with poise. At a time commentators such as Francis Fukuyama have marshalled formidable arguments questioning whether women can have it all, Cherie Booth is an example to all those who believe that they should at least be allowed to try.

– The Times

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