Cherie makes a splash on luxury hols with Euan
PERMA-TANNED moneybags Tony Blair has not yet been awarded a hereditary title by the Queen, but he appears determined to groom a successor as a globe-trotting statesman.
The former Labour Prime Minister has taken his eldest son, Euan, and his daughter-in-law Suzanne Ashman on a luxurious two-week trip to Sri Lanka in which the family demonstrated their peerless talent for combining work with pleasure.
Euan, 31, tipped as a potential Labour MP, joined Tony and his mother, Cherie, at a meeting with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena in Colombo, where they posed for official pictures.
Euan — who lives with Suzanne, 27, in a £3 million London home, which he bought jointly with Cherie — is believed to have quit his lucrative job at investment bank Morgan Stanley to focus on building his political career.
A spokesman says Blair ‘emphasised to the President that every support would be extended to Sri Lanka for the growth of the island’s tourism industry’. To demonstrate their support, the Blairs and their two protection officers were put up at the luxurious Ulagalla Resort Hotel in Anuradhapura. The multi-millionpound annual bill for Blair’s protection officers, and their expenses, is footed by the British taxpayer.
‘Eco-friendly’ Ulagalla is spread across 58 acres of paddy fields, forests, rivers and lily ponds. It includes 20 private villas with their own swimming pools. ‘They stayed in the hotel and enjoyed it,’ a hotel spokesman tells me. ‘They were staying with us the entire time. As far as I know, it was the entire family.’
Sadly, their sojourn was marred by one unfortunate incident when Cherie is said to have slipped on the way to dinner and fallen into one of the ornamental ponds. ‘Cherie didn’t injure herself, but looked slightly foolish,’ a fellow guest claims. ‘It was the talk of the hotel.’
Blair used the ‘private visit’ to give a lecture on ‘reconciliation in Sri Lanka and the Northern Ireland experience’ while barrister Cherie gave a speech to the Sri Lanka Bar Association.
Happily, she found time for a yoga session with local instructor Serena Burgess, who gushed: ‘What an honour to teach Mrs Cherie Blair. Thank you for the selfie!’
The Blairs are said to have learned yoga moves such as the sphinx, the lizard and the cat- cow stretch in London. But it’s not known if Serena’s skills are any match for those of controversial former lifestyle ‘guru’ Carole Caplin.