It appears that that paragon of all virtues, Cherie Blair, (or Cherie Booth QC when it suits her) is to bring Christian enlightenment to us godless proles by giving a Lenten talk on BBC Radio 4.
Cherie Booth
Wednesday 14 March
repeated Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 March
Cherie Booth QC finds the themes of restorative justice in the story of Zacchaeus
Which naturally gives rise to some immediate questions:
1 Why is the BBC spending licence-fee payers’ money giving the partner of a suspected criminal in an active investigation airtime to pontificate about private morality?
2 Why is an active member of the judiciary broadcasting their personal views on the nature of sin and redemption to all and sundry on the public airwaves? and
3 Can anyone tell me why any political spouse, unelected to any office, should be given a platform for their religious views at public expense? And of course the most important question,
4 Is the Beeb being manipulated by a professional spin job?
I’d be very interested to know the answers – and don’t give us that ‘she’s a public figure, it’s in the public interest’ crap either, Auntie Beeb. It doesn’t wash.
The Blairs have always modelled themselves on the Clintons and Cherie has always been politically ambitious. The parallels are obvious, particularly now Hillary is running for president. Has it given Cherie ideas? On a little further googling it seems that this little BBC talk may be but one tactic in a grand strategy aimed at the transformation of the much-loathed Cherie into Our Lady Of The Charity Photo-Ops.
Just in these past few weeks she’s done women’s rights in Uganda, made friends with Pakistan, smiled her letterbox smile at scared children in Rwanda and became a celebrity ambassador for the Howard League for Penal Reform. I smell PR micro-management.
Of course it may be that all this public do-gooding is just designed to rub off on poor disgraced Tony. There seem to be moves afoot to position the Blairs post-resignation as members of that inchoate class, the ‘great and the good’ – the people who turn up on Royal Commissions and quangos or heading acronymic international bodies that no-one knows the purpose of, drawing a fat stipend and expenses all the while. Or is it all actually about Cherie and her own future political career?
Cherie Booth/Blair’s position in British politics is a vexed one. While it’s absolutely her right to pursue her own legal career despite being married to someone in the public eye, rather than choose to be an anonymous sidekick this political spouse has chosen not only to embrace the limelight but to use it to advance her own career. She’s a private individual when it suits her and a public figure when she nees money, which is often. She now commands 30,000 pounds and upwards for a speaking fee. She’s a politician, but no-one elected her. Forbes calls her the 62nd most powerful woman in politics. Not bad for someone who’s never been put to the electoral test.
Carefully crafted as this PR strategy appears, the big question is: will it work? Well, it worked for the Clintons post-impeachment. Bill has taken a step backwards into benign elder-statesmanism and money-making, a fate Blair very much wishes for himself. Hilllary is now front and centre as a senator and presidential candidate, a position Cherie must envy, given that she reportedly set aside her own ambitions in deference to her husband’s.
Clinton at least is putting herself on the electoral line, but Cherie prefers to exercise her influence privately just now, amassing a fortune in the process. That’ll come in handy later should she consider standing for office herself. She wouldn’t dare to put herself before the voters any time soon- she’d be massacred – but ten years down the line, who knows? If she does stand it’s sure as hell it won’t be under the name Blair; there are some things even spin can’t make palatable.
And then there’s the cash for honours affair, which may yet throw Cherie’s plans totally off-course, though that rather depends on whether the the Met have the gumption and the evidence to arrest and charge a sitting Prime Minister.
(I have to wonder what Cherie would do if the plod came knocking at 6am at No.11 with an arrest warrant for her husband. Would she do a Tessa Jowell to save her career or would she stand by her spouse like a good Catholic ? The answer to that question will determine whether all this careful public positioning comes to naught.)
It makes me really angry to see the BBC complicit in a Blair rehabiliation programme. Was it the religion commissioning editor’s idea to ask Cherie to do the talk? If so, why the hell did they think that was appropriate? Or did Cherie Blair or someone who works for her approach the BBC? If so, it shows a remarkablly naive susceptibility to spin. Is she being paid? If so, how much?
You might ask whether dicusssion of Cherie Blair and her media manoeuvrings is very politically productive when Blair’s big war-crime, Iraq, looms over everything.
I’d say of course it is: it’s an object lesson in how politicians use the media as a form of revisionism. The history is being rewritten as it happens, The acid test of all this will come ten or 20 years down the line: will we be saying “Cherie Blair? Who? Oh, you mean Cherie Booth, the PM.” or “Cherie Blair? Oh, you mean the war-criminal’s wife”.
