The Times of
London
Cherie said Bush 'stole' power and tackled him on executions
UNITED
KINGDOM: Tony Blair has been embarrassed by his wife�s displays of
open animosity towards President Bush, according to a forthcoming biography of
the Prime Minister.
Cherie Blair is said to have made no secret of her
conviction that Mr Bush "stole" the presidential election, and
picked an argument with him over the death penalty during a private dinner.
Although the Prime Minister was pragmatic about Mr Bush�s
victory, Mrs Blair was far less sanguine about the Supreme Court decision that
gave him the keys to the White House. She believed Al Gore had been "robbed"
of the presidency and was hostile to the idea of her husband "cosying"
up to the new President.
Even as they flew to Washington for their 1st meeting with
the presidential couple, Mrs Blair was in no mood to curry favour, the book
Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader by Philip Stephens, states. "Cherie
Blair still believed that Bush had stolen the White House from Gore," he
wrote. She asked more than once during the journey why they had to be so nice
to "these people."
Mrs Blair scarcely concealed her impatience as the Blair
team debated on the plane whether the gift he had brought for the President, a
bust of Winston Churchill, was of sufficient quality for the Oval Office. They
decided to find a better one and that Mr Blair would tell the President it was
on its way. Mrs Blair was annoyed at the fuss but was overruled. Another bust
was delivered months later.
The book�s disclosures of Mrs Blair�s forthright views
will cause embarrassment in Downing Street, because of Mr Blair�s good
working relations with Mr Bush, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
although they will not surprise officials or ministers who know her well. She
is known for expressing her views forcefully in private.
Stephens writes that Mrs Blair behaved impeccably at her 1st
meeting with the President "for all her outspoken resentment on the
flight" and "to the great relief of her husband and aides" she
had been at pains to make friends with Laura Bush. But when the Bushes came to
Britain in the summer of 2001, Mrs Blair, "more tribal in her politics
than Tony," according to a close family friend, embarrassed her husband.
As the two couples sat down to dinner, with the officials no longer there, Mrs
Blair could not resist an argument. She is a human rights lawyer and turned to
the death penalty, a subject on which she has blunt views.
Judicial executions were an immoral violation of human
rights, an affront under the US Constitution as much as under European laws to
the fundamental principles of justice, she said. This opinion was delivered to
a man who as Governor of Texas signed warrants for more than 150 executions.
Mr Blair was reported to have "squirmed," even
though he shares her opposition to the death penalty. The author says that
when he asked Mr Blair about the incident during research for the book he
looked uncomfortable - all he would say was that Cherie had raised the issue
but as far as he was concerned the United States and Britain simply had
different systems.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "She has always had a
good relationship with President Bush and has of course discussed many issues
with him, including capital punishment. The discussions have always been
good-natured." Stephens also states that later in the evening Mr Bush had
been embarrassed by his wife. Laura Bush had made it clear that her views on
abortion were a great deal more liberal than his.
Mrs Blair, who is writing a book about prime ministers�
spouses, has made her forthright views known several times in situations that
have caused alarm at No 10. She issued an apology after saying during a visit
to Britain by Queen Rania of Jordan in June 2002 that young Palestinians
"feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up." Last month
she said that "Saudi Arabia�s image in the world is appalling"
over its treatment of women, in a speech in front of the Saudi Ambassador.
Stephens�s book also reveals the coolness shown by Vice-
President Cheney in his early meetings with Mr Blair and how Mr Cheney showed
his hostility later on to Mr Blair�s efforts to persuade Mr Bush to work
through the UN before war against Iraq. He made "occasional, acid"
interventions during the crucial Camp David summit and "during the
following days and months he would be the constant disrupting force in the
Anglo-American relationship." Stephens adds: "If Donald Rumsfeld
discomfited Blair with his public disdain for multilateralism, Cheney sought
to undermine the Prime Minister privately."
Stephens is a political columnist on the Financial Times and
the paper�s former political editor. His 250-page biography of Mr Blair was
commissioned by the publishers Viking to meet an urgent demand from Americans
for more information about the Prime Minister and his family. Since Mr Blair
became Mr Bush�s closest ally in the war on terrorism he has become
universally popular with Americans, not least for his ability to describe
al-Qaeda�s threat with an eloquence that the President cannot match.
There has been widespread concern among Americans that Mr
Blair�s intimate support for President Bush might have damaged his prospects
of re-election.
The book is published in America on February 5 and is
expected to sell well in the Anglophile cities of New York and Washington.