-Caveat Lector- Euphorian spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.
------- Note from Euphorian: "Cherie Blair has one of the sharpest legal brains in the country." ------- To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk The court of Cherie Long before the row over her links with a conman, Cherie Blair's eccentric pals were a source of concern in Downing Street. So why did she refuse to drop them? Libby Brooks reports Libby Brooks Thursday December 05 2002 The Guardian Soon after Labour's triumphant 1997 election, Alastair Campbell was greeted on arrival at Downing Street by a vision which promptly shattered his morning good cheer. Tripping down the stairs from the prime minister's private apartments was "lifestyle therapist" Carole Caplin, already recognised as one of Cherie Blair's most intimate advisers, and this week described variously as a former soft-porn model, an ex-member of the discredited 80s cult Exegesis and, of course, as the daughter of Sylvia, who has reputedly assisted Blair in her communications with the spirit world. Campbell wasted no time in making his concerns apparent. "What's that woman doing in here?" he barked, within Caplin's earshot. He was astounded that, following her elevation to the role of first lady, Blair had not conducted a serious re-evaluation of those she kept close to her. The friction between the more colourful elements of Cherie Blair's entourage, and the more sober demands of her position, neither began nor ended with that morning encounter. But the unravelling allegations of this past week, which resulted in Blair's extraordinary statement yesterday - in which she admitted that Caplin's convicted fraudster partner, Peter Foster, had indeed helped broker the purchase of two flats in Bristol, despite previous denials - only hint at the significance of this key relationship. "Cherie is completely emotionally dependent on Caplin," says a source (no one in the Blair's inner circle will go on the record on the subject of Cherie). "[Caplin] is the person who helps her in the one area of her life where she feels genuinely insecure - her appearance. In her relationship with Blair, she was always used to being the less attractive partner - she was the brains and he was the brawn. Suddenly she found herself being judged on completely different terms." Carole Caplin's role in managing this vulnerability has brought her into direct conflict with both Campbell and his partner, Fiona Millar, Blair's unofficial minder, who have regarded her as a political liability for many years. But Blair is a supremely loyal person and, even as the Mail on Sunday story was breaking last weekend, she was reportedly hosting Caplin at Chequers. Cherie and Caplin first met when Caplin was running an exercise class at the Albany fitness centre in Regent's Park, London, long before her husband became prime minister. After Blair's election to leader, the pair became much closer, and Caplin has since been employed to advise on many aspects of dress, health and fitness, and is credited with introducing Blair to a number of alternative therapists. She has chosen clothes for Blair from the likes of Ronit Zilkha and Paddy Campbell, and over the years she has negotiated deals with a number of designers. It is important to distinguish between Caplin, and her mother and boyfriend, but long before this current round of guilt-by-association began, Caplin was attracting potentially compromising press. In 1994, the Express, for example, alleged that she used to run a company "giving women advice on how to spice up their sex lives". Campbell has never been comfortable with Caplin's proximity. "If you're the prime minister's press secretary and you see this happening, what do you do?" says one Downing Street insider. "You're into damage avoidance. But is it reasonable that someone should be banished to the wastes of Siberia just because the yellow press will have a pop at her every two years or so? No." Blair has remained loyal to her friend, and continued to be introduced to people by her. Granted, many highly pressured women - and men - enjoy the benefits of a personal trainer and the occasional holistic massage or session of acupuncture. But even by the eccentric standards of the alternative therapy community, Blair's choice of practitioners has been pilloried for being at the kooky end of the spectrum. While all who have dealt with Blair observe a strict code of silence, one can readily gain a sense of their chosen parish. Eighty-five-year-old Jack Temple, for example, runs the Temple Healing Centre in West Byfleet in Surrey. Although he refuses to discuss individual patients, Blair was reportedly introduced to him by Caplin six years ago. Temple says that he is able to reverse the ageing process by dowsing, and that he is able to undertake "absent healing" of clients all over the world, by means of bottles of alcohol charged with energy, which is transmitted via a magnetic field on his desk. He also produces a dried strawberry-leaf supplement to cleanse the body of impurities, he says, by harvesting plants grown within a circle of stones arranged in accordance with a neolithic map of the human body. Blair has been reported to have taken this supplement. "Everyone wants to knock what I'm doing because they don't understand it," says Temple, who charges £55 per consultation. "But it's difficult to explain because you can't translate magnetic energy into words." Meanwhile, Ayurvedic specialist Bharti Vyas, who practises in Mayfair, London, has memorably introduced Blair to the bioelectrical shield pendant, which costs more than £200 and allegedly protects the wearer from harmful radiation from everyday electrical equipment, inflatable "Flowtron" leggings to fight water retention, and the acupuncture ear pin, which apparently relieves stress and tension. But Vyas herself was responsible for a great deal of stress and tension last November, when it was suggested that the therapist had abused her famous client in order to gain publicity for the opening of a new business venture; the "quiet family affair" that Blair had been led to expect turned into a media scrum. The QC issued Vyas with a severe reprimand, writing: "I am very uneasy about being used in this way (not for the first time) to promote your business. I am going to take a few weeks off from visiting the salon and hope in the meantime that you ... will refrain from discussing anything to do with the press." The phrase "a few weeks" is pertinent. While Millar was reportedly keen that her charge sever all ties with Vyas after such blatant exploitation, Blair continues to make secret visits to the salon on a regular basis. Cherie Blair has one of the sharpest legal brains in the country. She is also a committed Catholic, a devoted mother, and an active campaigner for a number of worthwhile causes, garnering awe from all around for her ability to manage so many conflicting demands. So why does she take advice from a man who insists that he can reverse the ageing process by divining for water with a stick? And why does she continue to do so despite being constantly warned about the political risk such associations represent? The British press is notorious for denying women the complexity they deserve. It is, of course, plausible that an interest in juniper oil and jurisprudence might happily co-exist. Nor is there anything profoundly unusual about many of Blair's alternative forays, though there are many who would wish to exaggerate them in order to smear her husband. Similarly, though she may have been naive in her dealing with Foster, there were many watching eagerly for her to slip up. Blair is certainly broad-minded, and comes from a family of emotionally open and experimental women. Her mother, Gale, worked as an actress, and is a constant presence at Downing Street. Her sister, Lyndsey, gave up a flourishing career as a property lawyer to retrain as a homeopath. As Elizabeth Gibaud, a dietician at the exclusive Hale clinic in London, who helped Blair lose a stone following the birth of her son Leo, notes: "People don't pay that kind of money if they don't take it seriously." There is a tacit implication that an interest in the more extreme methods of alternative therapy requires a certain gullibility. Yet some working closely with Blair argue that her private exploration should remain private, and should be seen in the context of her determination to take her position seriously and "look the part". Others believe that her insecurity may not be helped by her other close and notoriously forthright adviser, Millar. "Fiona is unbelievably tough and she's the sort of person who would make you feel inadequate," said another source, suggesting that Millar could inadvertently become an amplifier for Cherie's insecurities. Caplin may thus remain a necessary antidote. Other less generous observers suggest that Blair's ambition has escalated over the years to the extent that she has made herself even more vulnerable, associating with people who do not have the perspective or inclination to warn her about potentially embarrassing liaisons. True or not, she could not be faulted on her loyalty. Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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