The Times interview with Cherie Blair | Speaking for Myself: book extract (part 1) | Book extract (part 2) | Book extract (part 3)

Cherie Blair reveals in The Times today the full scale of her rift with Alastair Campbell over the role of Carole Caplin, her style adviser.

The wife of the former Prime Minister says that she was told that the Downing Street press office hated her because they had told lies on her behalf over Peter Foster, the Australian conman and Ms Caplin’s boyfriend at the time, and her purchase of two flats in Bristol.

She reveals that infighting among Blairites was just as savage as that between Blairites and Brownites.

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The animosity between Mrs Blair and Mr Campbell over Ms Caplin is exposed in extraordinary detail in the latest extracts from her autobiography, Speaking for Myself, being serialised this week in The Times.

Yesterday Ed Balls, Gordon Brown’s closest ally, called for an end to “personal attacks and settling old scores” after he was asked about the autobiographies of Mrs Blair and the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.

In extracts published in The Times today, Mrs Blair recounts her poor relations with Anji Hunter, a friend of her husband since university. Mrs Blair bought the flats — one for her son and one to rent — without telling her husband, she confirms.

Mrs Blair also discloses that the widow of David Kelly, the scientist who took his own life at the height of the row with the BBC over the Iraq war dossier, went to see the Blairs at Chequers. They invited her so that they could say “personally how very sorry we were about what happened”.

Tensions over Ms Caplin erupted on the day of Mr Blair’s first Labour conference speech as leader in 1994 when Mr Campbell learnt that The Sun was about to publish topless photographs of her. He confronted Mrs Blair and Ms Caplin and said that “our beautiful day has been ruined by this ridiculous woman”.

He was “literally spitting”, Mrs Blair said. She refused to dismiss Ms Caplin and reminded him that he had once written for a pornographic magazine and that did not disqualify him from his job. Mr Blair was equally furious. He told his wife: “I cannot believe this, Cherie, this woman has been in our house . . . And to think I let you talk me into having a massage.”

Mrs Blair reflects about Mr Campbell: “What I didn’t know was that he had a temper, and ego you could build a house on. He once said that I had the brains of a man and the emotions of a woman and he found that very difficult. The truth is he didn’t like to think that women had equal capacity.”

Then in 2002 came the claims that Foster had been involved in her purchase of the flats, and the revelation that Mrs Blair had contacted his solicitors on Ms Caplin’s behalf as he contested a deportation case.

Mr Blair and his wife had an angry row in which he said to her: “I told you not to buy any bloody flats.” But although Mrs Blair had spoken to Foster by telephone and exchanged e-mails, Mr Blair told Mr Campbell that there had been no contact.

After a stream of denials from No 10, an exchange of e-mails between Foster and Mrs Blair surfaced. She says of Mr Campbell: “I had never seen him so angry. As he saw it, he had lied to save my face and he was determined if anyone went down for this it wasn’t going to be Alastair Campbell.”

She was forced to issue a statement saying that Foster was involved.

Mrs Blair then tells of the reaction of Fiona Millar, Mr Campbell’s partner, who also worked in No 10:

“Fiona’s take was slightly different. ‘Everyone in the press office hates you,’ she told me. ‘They’ve told lies on your behalf and none of them ever wants to work for you again. They want nothing more to do with you’. ”

Mr Campbell was not the only aide with whom Mrs Blair fell out. Against the advice of Ms Hunter, Mr Blair’s leading personal adviser at the time, she went alone into Mr Blair’s first conference as leader on her own and was suddenly surrounded by cameras. She was marched back to her room by another aide to be confronted by Ms Hunter. “I thought I told you not to go down there Cherie,” she told her. “You really don’t understand politics.”

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