Cherie Blair: Saint or sinner?

Where did all this start?

MRS Blair wanted to buy property in Bristol where her son, Euan, is at university. So as not to arouse interest, she asked her "lifestyle guru" Carole Caplin to do some viewings. In October, Ms Caplin's boyfriend Peter Foster became involved, knocking the price of two flats down from £297,000 each to £265,000. He suggested that his company covered some of the costs of the purchase saying to Cherie "your pleasure is my purpose". Cherie thanked him profusely, saying she and he were on the same wavelength and concluding: "You're a star."

Who are these people Caplin and Foster?

MS Caplin, a former topless model and dancer, has been Mrs Blair's advisor since 1992. It is reputed that she pays Ms Caplin £5,000-a-month for tips on clothes, but the pair are also very close friends: Ms Caplin has accompanied the Blairs on holiday and once, at Tony's request, gave Bill Clinton a back massage. Ms Caplin's mother is a psychic whom Mrs Blair apparently uses for advice.

Peter Foster is a 40-year-old Australian who is wanted Down Under by investors who claim to have lost £1.4m on his diet products. In a long fraudulent career, he has been jailed in Britain, the US and Australia for selling phoney products, most famously duping his then girlfriend Sam Fox into promoting a diet tea. When he arrived at Luton Airport on August 31, he was refused entry because his presence was not "conducive to the public good". His claim to stay is currently going through the courts.

How did Cherie get into this controversy?

SIMPLY by not telling the whole truth. She said last night that this was to protect the privacy of Euan - and you could tell how hard it was for her to drag him into it because she almost broke down.

However understandable a quest for privacy, it does not excuse Mrs Blair's economy with the truth. The Mail on Sunday asked Downing Street ten days ago whether Foster was acting as Mrs Blair's financial advisor. Mrs Blair said not. But on Thursday, the Mail produced a series of e-mails which proved that Foster had certainly provided financial advice. Mrs Blair conceded, but through Downing Street she said if she had known of Foster's dubious background she would have been more circumspect, and she denied interjecting in his deportation case.

Then, on Monday afternoon, Mr Foster's solicitors issued a statement that on November 22 they had received a call from Mrs Blair inquiring about the case. It left the Downing Street press officers very embarrassed because they had twice given out mis-information at Mrs Blair's bequest.

What happened to the last person to make an indiscrete phone call?

HE was sacked. That was Peter Mandelson in 1998. He received a £1m donation from the Hinduja brothers who wanted a British passport so they could avoid being tried in India for fraud. The Hartlepool MP innocently phoned the Home Office to see how their passport application was coming along - and was dismissed by Mr Blair. Mr Blair is, though, unable to dismiss Mrs Blair from the post of wife.

Can Cherie offer any mitigation?

YES and she put it powerfully last night, but her case is threadbare.

Undoubtedly, the Mail newspapers despise and detest everything Mrs Blair stands for (she reciprocates the feelings). Understandably, the Mail was interested in the conman and the PM's wife - and by not releasing the whole story Mrs Blair gave them all the ammunition they needed.

It is understandable that a busy career women and mother like Mrs Blair needs assistants. But, however busy you are, would you entrust your family's life savings to a friend's boyfriend who you have never met, who has just landed in the country and who you are aware has some sort of strange past? You wouldn't, and you certainly wouldn't expect the Prime Minister's wife with a brilliant brain to either.

And, despite Mrs Blair's protestations, Foster is well known. In 1999, Lord Irvine discussed Foster's cons in the House of Lords. It was Irvine who played cupid to Cherie and Tony in the late 1970s, and he has remained very close ever since. Did everyone around Downing Street really forget Foster's name?

It is, perhaps, understandable that Mrs Blair made the phone call. Ms Caplin was pregnant by Foster (she had a miscarriage last week) and was in a terrible state about him being deported and her left as a single parent. She begged Mrs Blair to call Foster's solicitors to reassure her they were doing their best. Loyally, Mrs Blair did - but she must have known that the PM's wife, herself a judge, interjecting in a convicted conman's case would look awful in front page headlines.

What was Foster really up to?

Theories abound. It is claimed he saw how besotted Mrs Blair is with her lifestyle guru - and her "batty" psychic mother - and so wheedled his way into Ms Caplin's affections and made her pregnant. By paying some of Mrs Blair's property fees, he now had her in his debt. He planned to market another diet regime to schoolchildren, and wanted to call in that favour by getting Mrs Blair and Euan to support it.

Are there any other side issues?

There's the question of the blind trust, which Mrs Blair used to buy the flats. When Mr Blair was elected in 1997, he moved into the PM's traditional residence in Downing Street and sold his family home in Islington. The money was put into a 'blind trust' - it still belonged to the Blairs, but was invested without reference to them by experts. This was Mr Blair's idea to protect himself from unwitting conflicts of interests. There is unlikely to be a conflict between Government policy and the Blairs' property (in Bristol and the constituency home in Trimdon), so Mrs Blair was cleared of improperly dipping into the blind trust.

However, as Mr Blair is the person who sits in judgement on whether the terms of the blind trust have been obeyed, he would clear Mrs Blair, wouldn't he?

So Cherie Blair is guilty of...?

1. Having dubious friends.

2. Protecting her family's privacy.

3. Allowing a convicted conman due for deportation to become involved with the Prime Minister's family finances.

4. Involving herself in the conman's deportation.

5. Not living in the real world - how many Trimdon folk are besotted by lifestyle gurus and "batty" psychics, and have student sons living in £269,000 apartments?

6. Being economical with the truth to the embarrassment of the Government's press people who are desperate to get the country to believe in the need to attack Iraq.

7. Tarnishing the reputation of her husband who in 1997 after years of Tory sleaze promised to be "whiter than white".

8. Handing her right-wing enemies a gift in the quiet days leading up to Christmas.

It's all very foolish but not actually wrong. Cherie can't resign - unless Mr Blair divorces her on the grounds of naivete. So where do we go from here?

IF, after Mrs Blair's bravura performance, there is nothing more to dribble out, we can say:

Cherie Blair: her ambition is to become a High Court judge, but with judgement like this, can she?

Fiona Millar and Alastair Campbell: Ms Millar was Cherie's advisor until she was supplanted by Ms Caplin. Ms Millar is the partner of Mr Campbell, the Labour spin guru. Both Ms Millar and Mr Campbell have been warning the Blairs for months of the dangers of Ms Caplin. It is now suggested that Mr Campbell, his relationship with Mr Blair ruined, will quietly depart in the New Year.

Tony Blair: even "Teflon Tony" will be stuck wi th tarnish after this episode. And if his partnership with Mr Campbell were to end - the two have been central to the New Labour project - he would be seriously exposed.