‘Cherie allowed to wear pendant to cope with number 10′
January 15th, 2011 - 9:31 pm ICT by IANSLondon, Jan 15 (IANS) Former British prime minister Tony Blair allowed his wife Cherie to wear a pendant to “ward off evil spirits” because she needed to be “slightly mad” to cope with life at the 10 Downing Street.The revelation comes in the latest instalment of diaries by Blair’s former chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell, the Daily Mail reported Saturday.
In the volume, which covers the first two years of Blair’s premiership and will be published later this month, Campbell tells how he warned the ex-premier about Cherie’s “madder stuff”, such as her support for alternative therapies.
It also reveals Blair consulted the Bible before making key decisions, reading a passage about John the Baptist hours before ordering a bombing raid on Iraq in 1998.
According to the report, Blair also apparently complained that his stature on the world stage was limited because Britain was “so small”.
In a section on Cherie, Campbell discussed a report in a newspaper about a “bioelectric shield” pendant “that was supposed to ward off evil spirits and harmful rays”.
Campbell writes: “I said to Fiona (Millar, Campbell’s partner and an adviser to Cherie), she had to get a hold of all this madder stuff but she said Cherie never raised it with her because she knew she would disapprove.”
Campbell also discussed Cherie’s interest in alternative therapies with her husband.
“Blair said they had to be slightly mad to cope,” he wrote.
“He was very sympathetic to Cherie doing this alternative b******s because he thought it was her way of coping.”
In December 1998, as he was poised to order a bombing of Iraq — four-and-a-half years before the full-scale invasion — Campbell’s diaries reveal how Blair relied on his Christianity to help him decide what to do.
“Blair was clearly having a bit of a wobble. He said he had been reading the Bible last night, as he often did when the really big decisions were on, and he had read something about John the Baptist and Herod which had caused him to rethink, albeit not change his mind.”
The former prime minister is due to appear before the Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 Iraq invasion next week.
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