Bewitched by Money ; This Week's Lucrative Lecture Enraged Even Her Traditional Supporters. But As We Reveal, Perilous Debts and a Growing Self- Delusion Are Setting a Devil-May-Care 'First Lady' Onto a Collision Course with No 10 Officials

Summary

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AS Cherie Blair enjoys the sanctuary of Chequers this weekend, she will have time to reflect on a week in which her financial affairs have, not for the first time, brought widespread opprobrium.

The 'First Lady of Downing Street', as she was billed, earned Pounds 30,000 from a 90-minute speaking engagement in the U.S., but suffered considerable damage to her reputation, with even the most Left-leaning commentators questioning how she could so shamelessly cash in on her husband's public office.

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Bewitched by Money ; This Week's Lucrative Lecture Enraged Even Her Traditional Supporters. But As We Reveal, Perilous Debts and a Growing Self- Delusion Are Setting a Devil-May-Care 'First Lady' Onto a Collision Course with No 10 Officials

However, such niceties as the preservation of her good name seem to have become dispensable to Mrs Blair as she and her husband fight to keep their heads above a rising tide of debts to which they have exposed themselves.

Their extravagant lifestyle - and in particular the purchase of their Pounds 3.65 million 'mini Downing Street' in London's Connaught Square - has left the Blairs in a position where they cannot afford to turn down offers of easy money, even those that are ethically questionable.

Now it has emerged that Mrs Blair's commercial activities have cau...

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