Why London’s Cherie cherishes bad company
Dec 15, 2002
Mrs Cherie Blair, wife of Britain’s premier, has purchased two flats with the help of convicted fraudster Peter Foster. This has raised controversy more so as to whether the deal breached the terms of a blind trust set up to shield the premier from fin
Mrs Cherie Blair, wife of Britain’s premier, has purchased two flats with the help of convicted fraudster Peter Foster. This has raised controversy more so as to whether the deal breached the terms of a blind trust set up to shield the premier from financial conflicts of interests. Downing Street is quick to exonerate Tony Blair from the scam. Cherie has also been linked to other eccentric pals
SOON after Blair’s Labour Party’s triumphant 1997 election, his new spokesman Alastair Campbell was greeted on arrival at Downing Street, the official London home of the premier, by a vision which promptly shattered his morning good cheer.
Tripping down the stairs from Bliar’s private apartments was ‘lifestyle therapist’ Carole Caplin, already recognised as one of Blair’s wife Cherie’s intimate advisers, and this week described as a former soft-porn model, an ex-member of the discredited ‘80s cult Exegesis and, as the daughter of Sylvia, who has assisted Cherie Blair in her communications with the spirit world. Campbell wasted no time in making his concerns apparent.
“What’s that woman doing in here?†he barked, within Caplin’s earshot. He was astounded that, following her elevation to the role of first lady, Blair had not conducted a serious re-evaluation of those she kept close to.
The friction between the more colourful elements of Cherie’s entourage, and the more sober demands of her position as first lady neither began nor ended with that morning encounter. But the unravelling allegations of this past week, which resulted in Cherie’s extraordinary statement recently in which she admitted that Caplin’s convicted fraudster partner, Peter Foster, had helped broker the purchase of two apartments in Bristol, west of England, despite previous denials –– only hint at the significance of this key relationship.
“Cherie is emotionally dependent on Caplin,†says a source (no one in Blair’s inner circle will go on the record on the subject of Cherie).
“(Caplin) is the person who helps her in the one area of her life where she feels genuinely insecure –– her appearance. In her relationship with Blair, she was always used to being the less attractive partner –– she was the brains and he was the brawn. Suddenly, she found herself being judged on completely different terms.â€
Caplin’s role in managing this vulnerability has brought her into direct conflict with Campbell and his partner, Fiona Millar, Blair’s unofficial minder, who have regarded her as a political liability for many years. But Cherie is a loyal person and, even as the Mail on Sunday story was breaking last weekend, she was reportedly hosting Caplin at his country home, Chequers, north of London. Cherie and Caplin first met when Caplin was running an exercise class at the Albany fitness centre in Regent’s Park, London, long before her husband became premeir.
After Blair’s election, the pair became much closer, and Caplin has since been employ-ed to advise on many aspects of dress, health and fitness, and is credited with introducing Cherie to many of alternative therapists. She has chosen clothes for Blair and over the years, she has negotiated deals with a number of designers.
The London Express one time alleged that Caplin used to run a company “giving women advice on how to spice up their sex lives.â€
Campbell has never been comfortable with Caplin’s proximity. “If you’re the prime minister’s press secretary and you see this happening, what do you do?†says one Downing Street insider. “You’re into damage avoidance. But is it reasonable that someone should be banished just because the yellow press will have a pop at her every two years or so? No.†Cherie has remained loyal to her friend, and continued to be introduced to people by her.
Granted, many highly pressured women –– and men enjoy the benefits of a personal trainer and a massage or session of acupuncture.
But even by the eccentric standards of the alternative therapy community, Cherie’s choice of practitioners has been pilloried for being at the kooky end of the spectrum.
While all who have dealt with Blair observe a strict code of silence, one can gain a sense of their chosen parish for example 85-year-old Jack Temple, who runs the Temple Healing Centre in West Byfleet in Surrey, south of London.
Although he refuses to discuss individual patients, Cherie was reportedly introduced to him by Caplin six years ago. Temple says he is able to reverse the ageing process by dowsing, and that he is able to undertake “absent healing†of clients world over, by means of bottles of alcohol charged with energy, which is transmitted via a magnetic field on his desk.
He also produces a dried strawberry-leaf supplement to cleanse the body of impurities, he says, by harvesting plants grown in a circle of stones arranged in accordance with a neolithic map of the human body. Cherie is reported to have taken this supplement. Temple charges $85 per consultation.
Meanwhile, Ayurvedic specialist Bharti Vyas, who practises in Mayfair, central London, has memorably introduced Cherie to the bioelectrical shield pendant, which costs over $300 and allegedly protects the wearer from harmful radiation from everyday electrical equipment, inflatable ‘Flowtron’ leggings to fight water retention, and the acupuncture ear pin, which apparently relieves stress and tension.
But Vyas was responsible for a great deal of stress and tension last November, when it was suggested that the therapist had abused her famous client in order to gain publicity for the opening of a new business venture; the “quiet family affair†that Cherie had been led to expect turned into a media scrum. Cherie issued Vyas with a severe reprimand, writing: “I am very uneasy about being used in this way (not for the first time) to promote your business. I am going to take a few weeks off from visiting the salon and hope in the meantime that you... will refrain from discussing anything to do with the press.†The phrase “a few weeks†is pertinent. While Millar was reportedly keen that her charge sever all ties with Vyas after such blatant exploitation, Cherie continues to make secret visits to the salon on a regular basis.
Cherie has one of the sharpest legal brains in the UK. She is also a committed Catholic, a devoted mother, and an active campaigner for a number of worthwhile causes, garnering awe from all around for her ability to manage many conflicting demands. So why does she take advice from a man who insists that he can reverse the ageing process by divining for water with a stick? And why does she continue to do so despite being constantly warned about the political risk such associations represent?
The British press is notorious for denying women the complexity they deserve. It is, of course, plausible that an interest in juniper oil and jurisprudence might happily co-exist. Nor is there anything profoundly unusual about many of Cherie’s alternative forays, though there are many who would wish to exaggerate.
Cherie is certainly broad-minded, and comes from a family of emotionally open and experimental women. Her mother, Gale, worked as an actress, and is a constant presence at Downing Street. Her sister, Lyndsey, gave up a flourishing career as a property lawyer to retrain as a homeopath. As Elizabeth Gibaud, Cherie’s dietician notes: “People don’t pay that kind of money if they don’t take it seriously.†There is a tacit implication that an interest in the more extreme methods of alternative therapy requires a certain gullibility. Yet some working closely with Cherie argue that her private exploration should remain private, and should be seen in the context of her determination to take her position seriously.
Others believe that her insecurity may not be helped by her other close and notoriously forthright adviser, Millar. “Fiona is tough and she’s the kind who would make you feel inadequate,†said another source, suggesting that Millar could inadvertently become an amplifier for Cherie’s insecurities. Caplin may thus remain a necessary antidote.
Other observers suggest that Cherie’s ambition has escalated over the years to the extent that she has made herself even more vulnerable, associating with people who do not have the perspective or inclination to warn her about potentially embarrassing liaisons. True or not, she could not be faulted on her loyalty.
The Guardian
SOON after Blair’s Labour Party’s triumphant 1997 election, his new spokesman Alastair Campbell was greeted on arrival at Downing Street, the official London home of the premier, by a vision which promptly shattered his morning good cheer.
Tripping down the stairs from Bliar’s private apartments was ‘lifestyle therapist’ Carole Caplin, already recognised as one of Blair’s wife Cherie’s intimate advisers, and this week described as a former soft-porn model, an ex-member of the discredited ‘80s cult Exegesis and, as the daughter of Sylvia, who has assisted Cherie Blair in her communications with the spirit world. Campbell wasted no time in making his concerns apparent.
“What’s that woman doing in here?†he barked, within Caplin’s earshot. He was astounded that, following her elevation to the role of first lady, Blair had not conducted a serious re-evaluation of those she kept close to.
The friction between the more colourful elements of Cherie’s entourage, and the more sober demands of her position as first lady neither began nor ended with that morning encounter. But the unravelling allegations of this past week, which resulted in Cherie’s extraordinary statement recently in which she admitted that Caplin’s convicted fraudster partner, Peter Foster, had helped broker the purchase of two apartments in Bristol, west of England, despite previous denials –– only hint at the significance of this key relationship.
“Cherie is emotionally dependent on Caplin,†says a source (no one in Blair’s inner circle will go on the record on the subject of Cherie).
“(Caplin) is the person who helps her in the one area of her life where she feels genuinely insecure –– her appearance. In her relationship with Blair, she was always used to being the less attractive partner –– she was the brains and he was the brawn. Suddenly, she found herself being judged on completely different terms.â€
Caplin’s role in managing this vulnerability has brought her into direct conflict with Campbell and his partner, Fiona Millar, Blair’s unofficial minder, who have regarded her as a political liability for many years. But Cherie is a loyal person and, even as the Mail on Sunday story was breaking last weekend, she was reportedly hosting Caplin at his country home, Chequers, north of London. Cherie and Caplin first met when Caplin was running an exercise class at the Albany fitness centre in Regent’s Park, London, long before her husband became premeir.
After Blair’s election, the pair became much closer, and Caplin has since been employ-ed to advise on many aspects of dress, health and fitness, and is credited with introducing Cherie to many of alternative therapists. She has chosen clothes for Blair and over the years, she has negotiated deals with a number of designers.
The London Express one time alleged that Caplin used to run a company “giving women advice on how to spice up their sex lives.â€
Campbell has never been comfortable with Caplin’s proximity. “If you’re the prime minister’s press secretary and you see this happening, what do you do?†says one Downing Street insider. “You’re into damage avoidance. But is it reasonable that someone should be banished just because the yellow press will have a pop at her every two years or so? No.†Cherie has remained loyal to her friend, and continued to be introduced to people by her.
Granted, many highly pressured women –– and men enjoy the benefits of a personal trainer and a massage or session of acupuncture.
But even by the eccentric standards of the alternative therapy community, Cherie’s choice of practitioners has been pilloried for being at the kooky end of the spectrum.
While all who have dealt with Blair observe a strict code of silence, one can gain a sense of their chosen parish for example 85-year-old Jack Temple, who runs the Temple Healing Centre in West Byfleet in Surrey, south of London.
Although he refuses to discuss individual patients, Cherie was reportedly introduced to him by Caplin six years ago. Temple says he is able to reverse the ageing process by dowsing, and that he is able to undertake “absent healing†of clients world over, by means of bottles of alcohol charged with energy, which is transmitted via a magnetic field on his desk.
He also produces a dried strawberry-leaf supplement to cleanse the body of impurities, he says, by harvesting plants grown in a circle of stones arranged in accordance with a neolithic map of the human body. Cherie is reported to have taken this supplement. Temple charges $85 per consultation.
Meanwhile, Ayurvedic specialist Bharti Vyas, who practises in Mayfair, central London, has memorably introduced Cherie to the bioelectrical shield pendant, which costs over $300 and allegedly protects the wearer from harmful radiation from everyday electrical equipment, inflatable ‘Flowtron’ leggings to fight water retention, and the acupuncture ear pin, which apparently relieves stress and tension.
But Vyas was responsible for a great deal of stress and tension last November, when it was suggested that the therapist had abused her famous client in order to gain publicity for the opening of a new business venture; the “quiet family affair†that Cherie had been led to expect turned into a media scrum. Cherie issued Vyas with a severe reprimand, writing: “I am very uneasy about being used in this way (not for the first time) to promote your business. I am going to take a few weeks off from visiting the salon and hope in the meantime that you... will refrain from discussing anything to do with the press.†The phrase “a few weeks†is pertinent. While Millar was reportedly keen that her charge sever all ties with Vyas after such blatant exploitation, Cherie continues to make secret visits to the salon on a regular basis.
Cherie has one of the sharpest legal brains in the UK. She is also a committed Catholic, a devoted mother, and an active campaigner for a number of worthwhile causes, garnering awe from all around for her ability to manage many conflicting demands. So why does she take advice from a man who insists that he can reverse the ageing process by divining for water with a stick? And why does she continue to do so despite being constantly warned about the political risk such associations represent?
The British press is notorious for denying women the complexity they deserve. It is, of course, plausible that an interest in juniper oil and jurisprudence might happily co-exist. Nor is there anything profoundly unusual about many of Cherie’s alternative forays, though there are many who would wish to exaggerate.
Cherie is certainly broad-minded, and comes from a family of emotionally open and experimental women. Her mother, Gale, worked as an actress, and is a constant presence at Downing Street. Her sister, Lyndsey, gave up a flourishing career as a property lawyer to retrain as a homeopath. As Elizabeth Gibaud, Cherie’s dietician notes: “People don’t pay that kind of money if they don’t take it seriously.†There is a tacit implication that an interest in the more extreme methods of alternative therapy requires a certain gullibility. Yet some working closely with Cherie argue that her private exploration should remain private, and should be seen in the context of her determination to take her position seriously.
Others believe that her insecurity may not be helped by her other close and notoriously forthright adviser, Millar. “Fiona is tough and she’s the kind who would make you feel inadequate,†said another source, suggesting that Millar could inadvertently become an amplifier for Cherie’s insecurities. Caplin may thus remain a necessary antidote.
Other observers suggest that Cherie’s ambition has escalated over the years to the extent that she has made herself even more vulnerable, associating with people who do not have the perspective or inclination to warn her about potentially embarrassing liaisons. True or not, she could not be faulted on her loyalty.
The Guardian