Blair used wife's 'pain' for political ends: book

ALL FOR MILEAGE: Cherie Blair wrote in her memoirs she was shocked by her husband's treatment of her miscarriage.

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Keywords: Tony Blair, Speaking For Myself

London: Cherie Blair was shocked by the ruthless manner in which the tragic news of her miscarriage was used by her husband and former British prime minister Tony Blair and his media managers for political reasons.

In the latest extracts from her memoirs Speaking for Myself, published in The Times, she said that even as she lay in pain and bleeding back in 2002, her husband and his communications chief, Alastair Campbell, insisted on informing the media immediately about the news of her miscarriage so that a delay in their planned family holiday did not trigger speculation of an early invasion of Iraq.

"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," Cherie wrote in an emotional

account of losing her baby at the age of 47.

In an astonishing disclosure, the high-profile lawyer also reveals that her fourth child, Leo, was conceived as she had failed to pack her usual contraceptive equipment while they were guests of the Queen at Balmoral.

"This year [1999] I had been a little more circumspect, and had not packed my contraceptive equipment out of sheer embarrassment," she said in her autobiography serialised in the British daily.

"As usual up there it has been bitterly cold, and what with one thing and another... But then, I thought, oh I can't be. I'm too old. It must be the menopause."

Cherie also writes that Gordon Brown was one of the handful of people her husband insisted on telling about her pregnancy.

"You have to understand, Cherie. It's a very sensitive topic for him. The whole issue of my being a family man is very sensitive to him," the former premier reasoned when she asked what possible business it could be of Brown, who was the Chancellor of Exchequer in his cabinet.

Leo, the fourth child was born on May 20, 2000.

In 2002 Cherie became pregnant again. She wrote: "Needless to say, I was astonished. Leo's birth has seemed like a miracle and here I was nearly three years older.

"Although the idea was daunting to say the least I realised it would be nice for Leo not to be what amounted to an only child." (Euan, Nicky and Kathryn are much older).

Her husband's reaction was very different. He said: "I'm not sure I want to be a father at 50."

"It was the same radiographer as before and she was really excited, going on about how rare it was for someone my age to have a naturally conceived baby," Cherie wrote.

Then as she was moving the sensor across her stomach, the radiographer stopped and told her: "There's no heartbeat, Mrs Blair. I'm afraid the baby's dead."

She claimed that the press announcement was made for political reasons. The Blairs had been planning to go on a holiday to France.

Cherie told her husband on the telephone what had happened. He broke the news to his mother-in-law and children and then told Campbell.

Shortly afterwards the phone rang again and it was both Blair and Campbell on the line. There were problems about not going on holiday, they told her.

There had been talk of troops being sent into Iraq and if the Blairs did not go on holiday it might send out the wrong signals that something was about to happen.

They decided, therefore, that the best thing was to tell the press that she had had a miscarriage.