HOW TWO OF THEIR SONS WORK AT BLAIR TOWERS

CHERIE is actively involved in the careers of two of her sons. The eldest, Euan, 30, started out working for merchant bank Morgan Stanley, but then took a job with the Australian employment agency Sarina Russo Job Access. He is now listed as Acting CEO and works in its London office.

Rather oddly, that office is on the seventh floor of 1 Great Cumberland Place, the concrete block overlooking Hyde Park which also houses the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the Cherie Blair Foundation For Women and the Cherie Blair Organisation.

The Sarina Russo agency is massive in Australia and now expanding rapidly in Britain, where it has eight offices and employs almost 100 people. It owes its meteoric rise in this country to one contract — a Government contract to do with the welfare-to-work programme.

The Government sends it unemployed young people and the firm trains them in how to write a CV, how to dress for interviews and so on. It does so as a sub-contractor of Serco, the Government outsourcing company.

But why the agency needs to be run from what is increasingly dubbed ‘Blair Towers’ is a mystery.

Cherie is also helping her second son, Nicky, develop a sports management business called Magnitude. This is an ‘e-sports business’, which manages teams competing on computer games online for prize money. It is also trying to operate as an agency representing footballers.

Nicky owns 40 per cent of the business and another 40 per cent is owned by his business partner Gabriel Moraes. Cherie is a director and holds the remaining 20 per cent stake.

Cherie takes an active interest in the business. She took time out of her busy schedule to meet a promising 17-year-old Mexican footballer by the name of Raul Mendiola, who has signed up Magnitude as his agent.

Magnitude, which began as a limited company, posted a loss of nearly £17,000 in 2010 — the last year for which accounts are available — and in 2013 it was turned into a partnership, which will mean that it no longer has to file full accounts with Companies House. And, surprise, surprise, Nicky has a desk and dedicated phone line in the Blair office building in Cumberland Place. It is also his business address.

This arrangement came under scrutiny from Westminster Council when officials made an unannounced visit and were concerned that Cherie might be breaking council tax rules by using an office for her two charities — for which she gets an 80 per cent discount on business rates — alongside a commercial undertaking.

But in fact, Nicky’s phone line and desk were in the offices of Omnia Strategy, which pays full business rates.