How does your husband compare?

I thought my husband was hard to take sometimes, like when he spent the first six months after my daughter's birth going to "headwettings" three times a week. Or how he always leaves empty packs of Extra gum around the house. But marriage to Tony Blair is obviously no picnic, according to Cherie Blair's new memoirs as she reveals the reaction after a miscarriage.

Twenty minutes later Tony called back. The kids were OK, and he hoped I understood, but he had to tell Alastair. Ah, yes. Alastair. I lay there just waiting. Then the phone again: this time the two of them on the line. There were implications in not going on holiday, they said. It was known that we were going to France. It was all to do with Iraq. There had been talk that we might be sending troops in. If we didn't go on holiday, the concern was that it would send out the wrong messages. They had decided that the best thing was to tell the press that I'd had a miscarriage.

I couldn't believe it. There I was, bleeding, and they were talking about what was going to be the line to the press. I put down the receiver and lay there staring at the ceiling, as pain began to grip.

At times it's seemed that Cherie was universally loathed in the UK (I once saw her speak at an antiques event where she was booed by the well-dressed crowd); she's been demonised more than her husband. Yet this really shows what life is like for a politician's family and how much their private life is intertwined with the public job. In an era of self-aggrandising political memoirs, it's gutsy to write about the messier sides of life. I applaud her for it.

Comments

[Mark Ingrams]

So much of this begs the question what do we want or expect of a prime minister's wife? Why do we even define it as a "role"? And in answering that it tells us much about some of the obstacles that women still face in society generally. A quiet, supportive,"stand by your man", domesticated profile will generally attract admiring glances and comment. Anything more challenging produces not just mild disapproval but, as we have seen with Cherie, a degree of bile and hatred in many quarters. For those critics, the fact that this upstart has now written a (rather good)book is just too much for them to bear.

[Lazy Mummy]

Annamac - but of course. Sad, isn't it, how someone as educated and influential as CB could be so indiscreet. I wonder how much is her personality vs. influence of being in the media glare/around "celebs" who think it's normal to let it all hang out.

[j]

I bet they were miles away. Id be more worried about waking the corgis...

[Mumofboyz]

I just think it's amusing that having been all coy about taking her contraception to Balmoral, she goes and reveals that she and Tony shagged in the Queen's presence! Can you imagine trying to keep quiet knowing the Monarch and Philip were just down the corridor.....

[Patricia]

Actually I found the way Cherie wrote about her miscarriage fom a 'poor me' perspective rather than acknowledging that this happens to many more people helpful in a sense of being more open. More people need to understand that it is both common and traumatic for those affected and the 'poor me' self centred aspect in Cherie's book may help convey the reality better than Cherie lending her name to 'official publicity'.
Worth noting though that although she doesn't seem to realise it Cherie was lucky to have four children before having a miscarriage. Recurrent miscarriages when you are desperate for a child are altogether worse.

[Annamac]

Indeed, LM, that was my point - but I think you knew that :)

[Lazy Mummy]

Well, Annamac, since you ask, my husband, like any, has his good sides & his bad sides. But any long-term relationship has ups & downs, and some people are easier to live with than others, and some people are easier to live with at certain times of their lives (or in certain situations) than others. And there are two (or more) sides to any relationship/marriage.

But we (probably like most AMs here) keep our marital discord pretty much to ourselves & present a united front to the world. I'd never dream of telling the world about our sex life or demonstrate that my husband had reacted to something in an idiotic way (even if he had). I mean - why would you want to embarrass yourself or your spouse deliberately?

[Annamac]

So, no one rose to the bait and answered the "how does your husband compare" question?

Bah, political memoirs: I think people should have the decency to at least reach retirement age before they publish.

[kieransmum]

Yes, see what you mean LM, it is interesting that there are so few miscarriage narratives around to compare it with.

[Sho]

The only thing that is comin out of these memoirs is that both of the Blairs and those around them think/thought that the British public are/were stupid.

And the only phrase that ever springs to mind, unfortunately, when I see or read about them is: snouts. As in: in the trough.

Anyone who is whingeing about worring about paying a 5million quid mortgage can gladly swap places with me for a while.

Or countless numbers of other working families who don't have the perks that those two have.

I was sorry to hear about the miscarriage though - it's true, it's not talked about enough. I'm another one who had one and then had nobody to talk to about it.

So perhaps instead of writing this "thing" Ms. Booth, Blair... Cherie, whatever, could have joined the board of some charity to promote information about miscariage? Ah yes, you don't get paid squillions to do that, do you?

[Baggofbones]

As I've mentioned on another thread, I moonlight as a features/parenting writer. I have not mentioned the children or my domestic/private life in print since my son started school, on the grounds that I feel it would be grossly unfair for anything about him or our private lives to become playground knowledge. I wouldn't mention my parents/siblings, either, on the grounds that they have not chosen to become public property (what I do write, I write under a pseudonym so no link could ever be made - but I still wouldn't write about them). And no amount of money would convince me otherwise (yes, of course I'd like a big swanky house, but not at that price).

It's bad enough knowing that your parents have sex, without all your friends' parents reading about it and commenting on it as well!

[Lazy Mummy]

I was one of the people who commented about the fact that I thought Cherie was sharing too much info re: her sex life/family planning etc.

I agree, it's very good & important that we're now (as a society) talking more about miscarriage and the pain, stress, grief of miscarriage and as someone who's had multiple miscarriages, I'm glad it's not a subject that needs to be just swept under the carpet anymore. BUT from reading the extract in the paper, I didn't get the sense that Cherie was discussing it from the perspective of: "oh, how awful this is for so many people and we need to stop it being a taboo subject so that women and their partners get the support they need to grieve". Rather I got the sense that she was seeing herself as such a victim in this situation and trying to elicit sympathy more for the stuff that happened around her than for the fact of the miscarriage.

[j]

sweet that she is too embarrassed to pack her condoms but not embarrassed to have all this in print.

(very un-Catholic to use them, tut tut, I wonder did she disclose this sinful habit to the Oratory School on admission?)

Poor Leo.

As for the self-pity, agree she doesnt know she is born compared with Sarah Brown.

[Sarah]

I assumed the 'what does that mean' questions were a way of approaching the issue of 'what do you plan to do', i.e. was she intending to continue the pregnancy. Though perhaps as Catholics they wouldn't have considered termination. Or maybe it was 'what does this mean for us/me/my career etc'.

[Patricia]

I agree with KM, when I had miscarriages it seemed like nobody spoke about them and I would have found things a little easier if women in the public eye were more open about theirs. Also if she's writing about herself a miscarriage is a part of your life, and to ignore some like that is to downplay how traumatic the whole experience can be. For better or worse my experience of 3 miscarriages helped shape who I am today.

However I do think though we (and Leo and all his friends etc) did not need to know the details of Leo's conception. I find it interesting that she was too embarassed to have her bag unpacked but not to tell the world... And what can she possibly be using that is too big to be put into her handbag (mind boggles).

[Gipsy]

Good for Cherie. She gets embarrassed that someone might see the condoms in her bag, and she only had sex because it was cold, and she found miscarriage traumatic (am only going by what has been repeated here as I've not read any of this stuff - not interested). None of the bits people are picking out here make me think the worst of her - quite the opposite. It sounds pretty much like the same sort of messy thinking and muddled up stressed out and busy lives that most of us have. Except without the 5 million quid house and 10 Downing Street address of course.

Hurrah. Not-perfect woman can be top barrister (rather than a popstar/glamour model/soapstar), mother and wife.

And thinking about it, why this Sarah Brown vs Cherie Blair/Booth? Why is it that women have to be pitted against each other all the time - especially by other women? They're simply two different people. Why, when given two women, one has to be held up as the epitome of good and the other as evil?

How about the middle ground that the vast majority of people live in, where we are all made up of a little bit of one, a little bit of the other, and with the rest filled in by good intentions and best efforts?

[glitter_junkie]

I thought the best bit was when she missed her period, told Tony, who said, "What does that mean?" and then told him a pregnancy test had come up positive and again he said, "What does that mean?" I really hope he didn't actually say that, if so, someone needs to sit him down and explain the facts of life. I can't believe she was too embarrassed to pack her cap or some condoms or whatever (was she 17 or 47?): people have sex. Amazing, who knew? People use contraception, and there are plenty of other methods to use. But hang on, isn't she a Catholic? I'm sure there are many Catholics who aren't that strict though.
I've got no sympathy, sorry. I read it: won't be reading any more. I didn't want to know a lot of the stuff in there, but did enjoy the way she put it across that she had sex with her husband (it was cold, you see) as if she has no sex drive, and it's just a temperature control thing. As a wife of the PM it can be expected that you need to consider the media: she was additionally, in my opinion, much more publicity seeking than Sarah Brown has been thus far and could expect some attention, even in the event of a miscarriage.

[mumoftwo]

Sorry, link to article doesn't work, but you can find Libby Purves' article in the Comment section.

[mumoftwo]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article3918782.ece

Libby Purves writes about this today in the Times. I always thought the Blairs kept their children out of the spotlight to a large degree when TB was in office, which I admired. I also have a grudging admiration for Cherie even though she obviously lacks judgement, mainly because of her career achievements and the fact that she isn't just a quiet nodding puppet (like Bush's wife). That said, she obviously loves the attention, whereas both Sarah and indeed her husband Gordon look like they are enduring some type of painful ordeal (which they probably are).

[Norah]

Way too much info Cherie.
I wonder how much money was involved in this telling-all and more importantly why the need to details? She makes more than decent money for public appearances, doesn't she? Maybe she should donate the cash from her memoirs to help women in real need, there is an idea!

[Mrs L]

Well said Jean Jones. I don't agree with many of Brown's policies (tax credits - aarrgghh), but I really respect his and his wife's choice to send their child to their local community school.
How Cherie can keep a straight face complaining about her mortgage, I don't know. Surely it's a case of if you can't afford a £5 million house, then don't buy one?

[kieransmum]

I disagree that she was wrong to write about her miscarriage. One of the hardest thing for me when I had my first, at 26, was that I had never heard of anyone in public life or literature having them - it seemed like this hidden taboo thing. That taboo is breaking down now which is socially good. For that alone this memoir is worthwhile.

[Gipsy]

Cece and JJ when you put it like that, I want Gordon and Sarah to swap jobs.

[Cece]

What I found most repellent was Cherie Blair's endless self-pity for herself combined with sniping at Sarah Brown, a woman who, with one baby that died and another with a horrendous, life-limiting condition that needs constant care, really does have something to feel sorry for herself about, but never whines. I see other people think it's OK to have a go at someone who has genuinely suffered for no other reason than that her work involves helping others and being with her son while he's here.

[Jean Jones]

Nobody forces anyone to go into politics, and once in nobody forces anyone to try for high office. They know the deal when they do these things and it doesn't seem to put them off. Their spouses must know what life will be like if the politician is successful. I have no sympathy whatsoever for Cherie Blair now moaning about what a haaaaaaaaaard time she's had, and I find her willingness to share far more details of her sex life and obstetrical history unseemly and lacking in taste. We don't need to know all about her miscarriage (quite a few of us have been there, thanks), and Leo, who is now, what, 8?, doesn't need to have the circumstances of his conception all over the papers where his classmates can hear all about it. I well remember a friend of my son's, at about that age, getting mercilessly teased by the other boys in his class because his mum kissed him in full view of the other boys when dropping him at school one day. What on earth will Leo have to cope with? And as for the money woes, nobody forced them to buy a huge expensive house in central London, not to mention the flats in Bristol and all the rest of their property purchases. It's a bit rich to decide to buy all these houses and then moan about having to pay for them!

Sarah Brown, OTOH, seems to me never to have put a foot wrong. She shuts up and keeps out of the limelight which therefore means she never needs to apologise, explain or justify herself. What Cherie Blair doesn't seem to get is that nobody is interested in her. She's not the one who was elected, she's not the one who ultimately carried the can, she knew what she was getting into when she agreed to her husband trying for the party leadership, and she should have shut up, got on with her own pursuits and avoided publicity as far as possible if she wanted a relatively quiet life in PM's wife terms. Too late to moan and then make money out of it (and I agree about only now letting on about Leo's MMR). It just looks tacky.

[Gipsy]

I'm not reading any of the excerpts or any of the stories on this. I really have absolutely zero interest in it all.

I like Cherie Blair, in as much as she's there in public and I have to form an opinion. I suspect that she and I wouldn't hit it off in real life. But I think she did a pretty good job as the wife of a prime minister. Frankly, it isn't a spotlight I'd like to have turned on me. Who on earth would be perfect under that spotlight? The imperfections we did see were pretty minor all in.

I thought that Sarah Brown still kept an interest in her agency? Again, she's had to go through some really difficult times - the loss of a child for instance - in full public glare. Not something I'd like to have to do.

Both women have my complete respect if not my admiration.

SM - just how perfect do women in the public eye have to be to meet your high standards for role models! I think that maybe you forget that we're all human :)

[bushra]

i'm inclined to take anything she says with a pinch of salt, i was reading the latest on the front page of the times and it all seemed a case of so-and-so was mean to me, but she fails to see how naive she was herself.

[Anonymum]

Much as I honestly admire Cherie's professional achievements and respect her for continuing to pursue her career, the excerpts from her memoirs that I have read so far really don't tell us much about life inside Downing Street or demonstrate much of an insight into the human condition. Instead there are echoes of Kerry Katona's interminable OK headlines - My Miscarriage Hell, My Right Royal Rubber Embarrassment. And why is it okay to tell everyone now that Leo had his MMR injections, after declining to do so at the time as a matter of privacy? Tacky, tacky, ker-ching, GRIN.

[M]

I find her gynaecological details as grotesque as John Prescott's accounts of sicking up pies - I'm reading about the Blairs on a strictly need to know basis in future.

[j]

Hmmm. We now hear that she hasnt finished it at all, it is being rushed out while Gordon Brown is still there to make it news..

Not quite so innocent, then. And I wonder if some of the extra information (agree with BoB here) might have got edited out, if they'd had time.

[Baggofbones]

Sorry - it's just Too Much Information for me...

[kieransmum]

It was a very brave and honest memoir.
Although the Blairs have occasionally embargoed major family stories, with the agreement of the UK press (they have been carried overseas) which suggests to me that the Blair's conception of tell-it-all honesty is relative.
They DON'T tell it all.

[Liz]

Oops a QC but apparently expressed an interest in becoming a Judge in 2007.
http://www.topnews.in/cherie-blair-wants-be-senior-judge-26041

Sorry thought she'd done it.

[Lazy Mummy]

I'm more sympathetic to Liz's view than to SM's. Yes, I'm glad she kept up her career & agree that that side of it was important, showing that she had a life outside of supporting her husband even when he was in that job. And I can see how (as one of the articles said) her insecurity about/grubbing for money might be rooted in her unstable /impoverished upbringing.

BUT, as Liz says, the woman's one of the most senior legal women in the country, and the shabby behaviour around the property in Bristol, the new age crystal healing, and now the airing of dirty laundry in public...Well, let's just say I don't think it's a great example. OK, it's fascinating to see how the heart of government is just all about reacting to events/crisis containment (as is policy in many/most businesses actually) but I really don't need to hear intimate details about her sex life/family planning cock-ups. The Americans would call it "oversharing" and I'd have to agree with them. It's not exactly dignified, is it?

[Rachel]

Cherie Booth is a QC, not a judge

Doesn't Sarah Brown have a disabled child. Perhaps that's why she stays at home?

[Liz]

Nope I still don't like her. She's one of the most senior judges in this country and she seems to think that if she sounds like a victim or an idiot then she'll get sympathy. I'm sure that if she really wanted to she could have stopped them announcing her miscarriage for their own advantage. I would have just screamed at my husband for about an hour - that'll do the trick every time :)

I just want her to act like the woman she really is, without the ditzy front. Of course if it's not a front then we need to look at how our judges get where they are!

[supermother]

I was always so pleased we had her. Not becoming a housewife like Brown's wife. Not becoming an appendage to her man like Clinton when her husband was in office. Instead carrying on like the rest of us with large families and full time proper alpha mother work.

All the criticism shows is the ingrained misogyny in this country as much shown by women against other women as by men against women. i can also empathise with her pain of having a large mortgage and understand how writing the books and doing the talks etc was wise to try to get that down.

[Jane2]

I read the excerpt in Times2 this morning and was moved to tears. Cherie came across as a real woman, blood, guts, sweat and tears.
I've never had a great deal of time for her, but the two excerpts I've read so far of her book have really changed my opinion. Leaving aside all political considerations, Cherie is a beacon. She's felt the pain, and tells it straight.
As for the appalling Alistair, well his own book sealed his doom: a crashing bore.