Tony Blair: I haven’t washed my own clothes since 1997
... and he never cooks or drives!
TO be a political heavyweight on the world stage, you have to delegate certain tasks to a trusted inner circle.
tony Blair certainly seems to subscribe to that philosophy.
For he has admitted that he hasn’t washed his own clothes, cooked a family meal or even driven a car himself since he first strode triumphantly into Downing street in 1997.
While other former prime ministers such as theresa May and David Cameron have been spotted queuing up at the supermarket like everyone else, the creator of New Labour confessed he had been spared the drudgery of day-to-day life.
Mr Blair, who was PM until 2007, said: ‘My life’s not been normal since moving into Downing street.’
He blamed the special treatment he was given in his ten years in charge, adding that once he became PM ‘you have the whole security apparatus around you and it just changes’.
Even during the past three months in lockdown, with none of the usual staff at his seven-bedroom family home in Buckinghamshire, he admitted most of the domestic duties fell to his wife Cherie – despite her own career as an international lawyer.
Mr Blair, 67, said washing up the dishes, vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom were left to ‘Cherie, the kids’ – second son Nicky, 35, has been staying with his parents along with his pregnant wife plus the Blair’s youngest child Leo, born while they were in Downing street and now 20. Even cooking has been restricted to making Leo an omelette, he told the sunday times. While Mr Blair’s globe-trotting pre-coronavirus life as head of his own Institute for Global Change may have left him little time for chores, it appears his reliance on his family is nothing new.
When Mrs Blair, 65, was interviewed by Prima magazine in an attempt to boost his appeal to Middle-England voters in 1996, she admitted: ‘I wouldn’t say he is intimate with our washing machine, but he does know where it is.’
And asked by the sunday times if it could really be true that her husband hadn’t done a single load of laundry since 1997, she quipped: ‘I would say 1980, when we got married.’ Mr Blair, a staunch opponent of leaving the EU, said he now expects the UK to leave with a deal on a future trading relationship. He said: ‘the information I have from the European side certainly is that they’re expecting this now. And they assume it is actually what the Government would prefer.’
He admitted being ‘terrified’ by the long-term economic impact of coronavirus. He said the Government’s advice on a way out of lockdown has been ‘confusing’ and urged Boris Johnson to recall ‘competent senior’ tories such as the experienced Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond to help tackle the crisis.
Mr Blair also said today’s political landscape had become a ‘harsh environment’ poisoned by social media and that, although his own children are ‘politically committed’, he would be ‘really worried’ if any of them chose a career in politics – particularly his daughter Kathryn.