December 10, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 5,1423

LONDON, Dec 9: While British Prime Minister Tony Blair has his attention focused on Iraq, much of the rest of Britain is preoccupied with his lawyer wife Cherie, her buxom “lifestyle guru” and a strapping Australian conman who faces deportation.

Even if nobody’s broken the law, Downing Street was hard-pressed to play down the real-life soap opera that has ballooned out of the Blairs’ blind-trust purchase of two luxury flats in Bristol, where their son Euan is at college.

“The prime minister feels, above all, that we do need to keep a sense of perspective,” Blair’s official spokesman told a daily press briefing that was dominated by “Cheriegate”.

“After acres of (media) coverage, we are able to show that nothing illegal or improper has been done,” the spokesman said. “We need to respect the privacy of the Blairs.”

Not anytime soon, though, judging from British newspapers — both high-brow and low — which have begun to put the words “Blair” and “sleaze” together in the same headline.

The saga began eight days ago when an anti-Blair tabloid, the Daily Mail, reported that Peter Foster, a convicted fraudster best known for bogus slimming pills, helped Cherie Blair look for real estate in Bristol.

Foster, who has been battling an immigration order to get out of Britain this week, is the companion of Carole Caplin, a one-time “page three” glamour model turned image and fitness consultant who is one of Cherie’s best friends.

Initially, Downing Street denied that Mrs Blair had anything to do with Foster. But then last Thursday, she herself acknowledged that he was indeed briefly involved in the Bristol house hunt in October.

She added that she did not know the “details” of Foster’s background, which included time in prison. Foster in turn emerged from Caplin’s north London apartment to say he never hid his past from anybody.

Leaked e-mails, published in the Daily Mail, quoted a grateful Mrs Blair as having written to Foster: “You’re a star.” He reportedly got the Blairs a 31,500 dollar discount on the transaction.

Mrs Blair — who as a lawyer deals with civil rights cases — and Caplin were so close that Alastair Campbell, the prime minister’s media strategist and “spin doctor”, became seriously concerned for his own boss’s image.

“What is that woman doing here?” the Scotsman, who is one of Blair’s closest advisers, was heard to say when Caplin once dropped in at Downing Street. (As it happens, Campbell’s companion Fiona Millar has been Mrs Blair’s media aide).

Bizarre as it all might look to outsiders, political analysts saw the danger of some real political damage to Blair, just 18 months after his Labour government returned to power on a landslide.

“Suddenly the Blairs’ lifestyle looks seriously at odds with middle England,” the conservative Daily Telegraph’s political editor George Jones wrote on Monday.

“If the Blair halo becomes more tarnished, an increasingly restive (Labour) party might start looking towards Gordon Brown,” the chancellor of the exchequer and Blair’s leadership rival, Jones said.

Blair’s spokesman said on Monday that the prime minister was focusing his energies on Iraq, after Baghdad sent the United Nations a massive dossier to back up its claim that it has no weapons of mass destruction.

“We do need to focus on what is important,” the spokesman said, adding that the prime minister — who plans to attend the EU enlargement summit in Copenhagen later this week — was also tackling domestic issues.

And Mrs. Blair? She was to appear in public to switch on the Christmas lights at Downing Street on behalf of a children’s charity.—AFP