'It's nothing personal, Cherie'

Women's Editor Christen Pears asks what is wrong with the Prime Minister's wife?

WHETHER it's her clothes, her comments or the company she keeps, it seems Cherie Blair can do no right. Who can forget those pixie boots she famously wore with leggings or what she said about Palestinian suicide bombers? The Press made sure we remembered, splashing the stories all over their front pages.

The Prime Minister's wife is making headlines again this week and, as usual, for all the wrong reasons. This time she's been linked financially to a convicted conman. The Daily Mail devoted nine pages to the saga yesterday, publishing what it described as a series of "devastating e-mails" between Cherie and Peter Foster, a man who has served three years in jail for fraud.

After originally denying a link between the two when the story first surfaced at the weekend, Downing Street last night issued a statement confirming Foster had helped out when the Blairs bought two flats in Bristol, where their son Euan is at university. Cherie denied any wrongdoing but did admit that if anyone had been misled it was her fault. In some quarters, at least, it will no doubt be seen as further evidence of her unsuitability as the premier's wife.

The Daily Mail may be noted for its animosity to Cherie but it isn't the only newspaper to attack her. Earlier this year she was pilloried by the press for comments she made following a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 19 Israelis.

"As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress," she said during a visit to a charity that provides medical aid for Palestinians. Although she was not condoning the attacks, she realised how her comments could be perceived and apologised almost immediately, condemning the killings. But the media pounced. "Cherie Blair's Suicide Bomb Blunder" screamed The Times, while The Sun spoke of her "horrendous error".

Robert Williams, professor of politics at Durham University, believes Cherie is often unfairly targeted by the media, but says it's nothing personal.

"I think there are strong parallels with Hillary Clinton," he says. "She and Cherie are the first generation of women who are successful, independent and wealthy in their own right, but married to world leaders.

"They aren't like Nancy Reagan who used to look up at her husband with a beatific smile. They have both stepped outside conventional expectations and I think that offends some people, particularly Daily Mail readers who are generally conservative and think a woman's place is to support her husband."

Norma Major kept quiet during her husband's time as Prime Minister and stayed out of the papers, as did her predecessors Audrey Callaghan and Mary Wilson. Denis Thatcher, the only person to be husband to a prime minister, was known to be even more right wing than his wife but he kept his political views to himself.

But Cherie is political by nature. Brought up by a single mother in Liverpool after her actor father Tony Booth walked out, she joined the Labour Party at the age of 16, and friends said that Tony Blair stepped up his political involvement to impress her.

In a rare interview, answering e-mail questions from readers of The Independent, she admitted she once had her sights on the job her husband got. "When I was 14 I told all the girls in my class that I wanted to be the first woman prime minister. Someone else beat me to that!"

She fought the unwinnable seat of Thanet North, in Kent, in the 1983 General Election, the same year Tony won his safe seat at Sedgefield. Her hopes of becoming an MP seem to have ended there but she has remained politically active, sometimes at odds with her husband's government.

She is a passionate advocate of human rights, and, as a barrister, has taken on several governments, including her husband's. Last year, she represented the TUC in a legal challenge to the Government over its reluctance to implement a European directive on parental leave, and she headed the legal team representing a group of ex-Gurkhas claiming racial discrimination because their pay and conditions were worse than those of other soldiers in the British army.

To some commentators this is unforgivable, but Professor Williams believes the hostility has more to do with plain, old-fashioned prejudice.

"There is a deep-rooted suspicion in Britain, and also in America, about people who are clever, particularly women. People are worried that Cherie Blair is manipulating her husband. They worry that she has access to power by influencing her husband but has no public accountability.

"In America, it went even further when Bill Clinton gave his wife a job in his government, introducing his healthcare policy. The policy failed, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because Hillary was the main author."

So is it simply that we don't like to see a woman being so successful? This certainly didn't seem to be the case at first. During the honeymoon period that followed Labour's 1997 General Election victory, Cherie was a darling of the Press, praised for the way she juggled her career and family life. Some even hailed her a 'superwoman', particularly when she went back to work after giving birth to her fourth child at the age of 45.

But as the gloss began to wear off New Labour, admiration of Cherie diminished. She's been criticised for everything, from failing to buy a train ticket to her interest in New Age healing. Newspapers have sneered at her figure and her Joker-like smile and denigrated her wardrobe - from the pixie boots, to the so-called 'pyjamas' she wore on a trip to Egypt, to the leather suit she wore at this year's Labour Party Conference.

Perhaps more tellingly, she has been attacked for her dealings with the Press. She wants to keep her children out of the limelight but allowed her son to be pictured with Kate Winslet at a film premiere. She wants privacy but has posed for photographs with Liz Hurley.

"There is a lot of ambivalence surrounding Cherie," says Prof Williams. "I think she is widely admired and she's obviously a very intelligent woman, but people seem reluctant to accept it. When she became a QC - and she will probably become a judge soon - people said it was only because of who she was married to.

"There are people who talk about how she combines a demanding career with bringing up her family but when Euan was found drunk in the street, there was no criticism of Tony. It was seen as a failure of parenting on her part."

Prof Williams says he wasn't surprised by this. He doesn't believe those who attack Cherie are hoping to harm her husband.

"I think if people want to criticise Tony Blair, they will; what they say about Cherie is separate. There are always going to be those who snipe about someone who is successful and in the public eye. They would love to see Cherie Blair fall on her face and they will take every opportunity to trip her up."