The problem with Sunday papers is that with nearly ten sections to the bigger tabloids, there’s always a part that gets missed out inadvertently. Yesterday’s victim was the Sunday Times “News Review”. The headlines looked unfamiliar, so instead of putting it in the paper recycle box (yes I am a good boy!) I decided to have a quick perusal to see what I had missed; I wished I hadn’t. Fiona Bruce, BBC newsreader and all round TV presenter, has apparently being following Cherie Blair around for five months with a film crew. The first programme will be shown this Wednesday at 9 p.m. on BBC 4. For somebody who doest like media intrusion into her life, Cheri kept this little half year jaunt close to her chest. If Bruce’s article is anything to go by however, I would do something else on the night in question, like watching paint dry. Rather than being a “warts and all” revelation, the picture of domestic bliss and everyday civility is nauseating. Football matches on nighttime TV, cooking meals for the family, new washing machines, kids toys all over the place, and no domestic help upstairs or down stairs is the image that Cheri desperately tries to portray through Bruce. The only thing missing is a Littlewoods catalogue, Lottery Lucky Dips in an attempt to escape the rat race and a fish and chip supper on a Saturday night. The attempt to try and portray a picture of every day, kitchen sink domestic bliss is too improbable to be taken seriously. World tours and presidential visits, barrister and circuit court judge work, public speaking tours at £30,000 a go, charity work, security concerns, electioneering and generally being at the side of her husband all negate the idea that they had lives like the majority of the population.
In some ways I feel sorry for the Blair’s; media intrusion can be cruel, but in many ways they have courted it unwisely. I also think that politicians at the top of the tree sacrifice a certain element of freedom and liberty due to security concerns and constantly being in the public eye. Those around them also suffer; nobody likes to see their loved one’s publicly ridiculed on a day-to-day basis. My objection centre’s around the attempt to portray themselves as “one of the people” when such a possibility is clearly absurd. Cherie’s father my have been in Coronation Street, but she is far from living the life of the vast majority of the population. Her tour of America will bring in hundred’s of thousands of pounds, and any book deal will raise millions. All this generated by one simple fact; she is Tony Blair’s wife and he was once Prime Minister for 10 years.
To be fair to Bruce, I don’t think she entirely fell for the spin. Her article concludes with her views that Cherie is very clever and very shrewd, and has a tendency to either avoid the difficult questions (Cheriegate, Matrix, her contempt for Gordon Brown) and skirt round them (does this remind you of someone else’s approach to difficult topics i.e. Iraq?). She is also clear on her assertion that despite spending five months together, she could not describe their relationship as friendly. Perhaps this may have something to do with the fact that the Blair’s approach to this whole episode was based on good PR and spin.
I could be totally wrong about my views on the Blair’s portrayal of domestic bliss, for instance I have no doubts about their love for their children or their desire to achieve a certain modicum of family normality. However, I suspect the future will see Mrs Blair emerge as more of a public figure than her husband.
Rumour has it that her first legal foray will be a Matrix challenge to the new smoking laws, funded no doubt by the tobacco lobby. With this in mind, when will she find time to do all that ironing?
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