Cherie Blair joins great and good on US speaking tour

[emad]

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Friday August 13, 2004
The Guardian

Snip:

Cherie Blair has joined a leading and expensive New York speakers' agency for a lecture tour in October, it was disclosed yesterday.
Speaking in her professional capacity as barrister Cherie Booth, the prime minister's wife has been signed up by the Harry Walker agency, whose clients include former presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

The agency also represents the Irish pop legend, Bono, and the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and it promotes Winston Churchill's grandson, a former Tory MP, as Winston S Churchill III. Fees for an appearance go from £25,000 to £160,000 for Bill Clinton.

A spokeswoman for Ms Booth's chambers, Matrix, said that she had offered to speak on "subjects that were within her professional expertise" as a lawyer and campaigner on human rights, employment law and parents' rights. Her speeches will attract attention, since she is known to have strong views on such issues as the war in Iraq or the fate of the Palestinians which could embarrass her husband.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1282270,00.html

So the daughter of terrorist, fraudster, thief, coke smuggler and gangster Robert Maxwell wants to lecture the Americans on what????? Getting away with it bigtime?????

[T_i_B]

1. Correction

So the daughter of terrorist, fraudster, thief, coke smuggler and gangster Robert Maxwell wants to lecture the Americans on what?????

Actually she is the daughter of Tony Booth, an actor who I belive appered in Til Death Us Do Part and maybe even one or two of the Confessions of a..... series of movies with Robin Asquith.

Not Robert Maxwell.

[emad]

2. Incorrect: She is Maxwell's daughter. The Tony Booth biz is

Thatcher era counter-intelligence, as anyone who has personally known her for the last 40 years will tell you!

[T_i_B]

4. mmmmmmmmkaaaaaayyy

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

:tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[AP]

5. That is so crazy. Are you OK?

[T_i_B]

Yo! AP!

We agree on something!

[AP]

8. I think we agree on much more...

...but it's going to take some time for a little historical perspective.

We should make a date to talk in about 25 years.

[emad]

11. Never felt better. Or anyone else for that matter that studied law

with her at the LSE!
Game's up for Maxwell's hideous spawn...

[AP]

15. So she went around uni telling people this story,

but you're the only one who knows it?

I went to uni with many people who don't have any idea who my father is.

[emad]

17. It's an open secret in UK politics. Thatcher was the one who

expressly gagged publication of full DTI enquiry into Maxwell and sons' criminal records as well as all mention of Cherie's parentage.

You can always look at the photographs......

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. or

[AP]

24. Wow, they sure look alot alike for people who aren't related.

Eyes. Mouth. Shape of head.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Did Maxwell know that Booth's mother was sleeping with her husband when he was supposed to be having an affair with her?

[emad]

26. Great airbrising. Fortunately DNA is more reliable...

almost as repliable as police criminal records.

[D-Notice]

6. Is that what Bush has on Bliar?

;-)

[emad]

13. it's a mututal thing.....

"uterine bastards" says it all

[Bridget Burke]

14. Is there any proof at all of this? Any link, anywhere?

Are you sure that she's not the secret daughter of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor?

[emad]

18. The Guardian and Observer microfiche departments hold all

non-internet archived editions pre-1992. Some are due to become available to the public in the British Library, later this year. These contain reports of Booth and Blair's involvement in a personal lawsuit in 1986 whereby the colleague who lent them £25,000 in 1982 to buy their first matrimonial home in North London (Stoke Newington/Hackney borders, Stavordale Road I believe) sued them for the return of that money. The newspaper reports carried court transcripts that the sum was eventually paid by Robert Maxwell after a private meting with Cherie, following which she neither denied nor admitted the money came from a trust fund he'd established for her in a paternity lawsuit some years previous, which had also partially funded her university education.

As you can imagine, a lot of people on all sides of the political spectrum in UK politics can't wait for that material to go online...

Edit: Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, authors of "Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy" have previously contributed to non-internet legal papers about Cherie's parentage.

[emad]

28. Addendum: Re Maxwell trust fund that contributed to Cherie's

university education:

Legal papers detailing Robert Maxwell's fight with shareholders in Pergamon Press also show that he was challenged about siphoning off shareholders' funds offshore that private investigators subsequently traced to a college fund for Cherie Booth's LSE education. Gordon Thomas refers to these.

Another publishing fight Maxwell was involved in in 1971: he claimed in a series of unsuccessful lawsuits to be the legal owned of a family business publisher Middle East Economic Digest, started in 1957 in London by one Elizabeth Shields-Collins Collard. Company almost went bust several times but private investor backed the company in 1969/70. Maxwell then claimed ownership of that investment in the High Court and lost. Pergamon Press shareholders' evidence was part of the winning argument and Cherie named as beneficiary under a paternity issue. Middle East Economic Digest then sold after much legal wrangling between 1984 and 1986 where Lebanese partners Lucien Dahdah and Joseph Coury (Khouri) gave evidence against Maxwell's new claim on ownership of the company. Cherie's additional claim of beneficial rights because of Maxwell link were also proved to be unjustified and she sufered heavy legal costs.

Not much of this ever cited when New Labour attempted to gain office. Major whitewashing job about her parentage led by Thatcher who insisted that a Department of Trade & Industry official enquiry gagged the Maxwell fiasco in a quid pro quo arrangement brokered by Vice President George H Bush who praised Maxwell as thoroughly decent businessman. Maxwell heavily censured by enquiry as unfit to be company director; this didn't stop him buying out Mirror Newspaper and subsequently stealing over £400 million from Mirror pensioners' fund. Sons Ian and evin Maxwell eventually went bankrupt for this debt, after their Pop's unfortunate moonlight skinny-dip in the Med just as the pensioners' fiasco was breaking in the news....

[SemperEadem]

25. dame anastasia

trying to pass as a Romonov spelling your name backwards?

[emad]

27. If I had a $ for each time someone posted that....I'd be pretty rich

by now. Sig names merely take the piss, come on dit en angleterre...

No Russian blood: Native American/American and English/German/Danish/other european.

[Joanne98]

3. So win are they going to release her tour schedule

A nice welcome with protesters holding up 'CRIMINAL' signs would be nice :)

[AP]

7. She's a very committed human rights lawyer. Sure you want to protest that?

[D-Notice]

9. I wonder if

she'll be mentioning the fact that over here you can now torture people to get evidence which the courts will allow...

:( :mad: :wtf: :argh:

[T_i_B]

10. Just for reference

Here is a link to the offending story (and offending it most certainly is).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1281390,00.html

[emad]

12. Not as offending as the gargoyle's true persona. Cherie sux

and so do the majority of her supporters.

[AP]

16. Does she suck more or less than JK Rowling?

[emad]

19. Cherie is in a class of her own. Thatcher protecting such a

lowlife speaks for itself.

[goforit]

20. I hope she does embarrass her hubby who is on a course of destruction

[emad]

21. Cherie cashes in as Mrs Blair

Daily Mail

13th August 2004
Cherie Blair: 'An international role model'

snip:

The agency makes clear to clients that she is being 'sold' not as an experienced human rights lawyer but as Mr Blair's spouse. It identifies her as Cherie Blair, though when she is working in a professional legal capacity she always insists on being called Cherie Booth QC. .........

and

The tour will have an additional benefit; dramatically raising Mrs Blair's profile among the Americans at the same time as her book The Goldfish Bowl, profiling Downing Street spouses, hits the shops.

Mrs Blair's surprise decision to take to the lecture circuit suggests she has abandoned her ambition to become a High Court judge. That has never looked realistic since the Cheriegate row when she was caught out over her relationship with convicted Australian conman Peter Foster over the purchase of two flats in Bristol. The lecture tour also suggests that the Blairs are beginning to plan for a life after Downing Street. One acquaintance of Mrs Blair said that she believed they would 'make their fortune' in the U.S. when he ends his political career.

The Harry Walker Agency is thrilled with its latest signing. E-mailing key clients, it describes Mrs Blair as "the noted British attorney, human rights advocate and wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair". It goes on: "Cherie Blair is a trailblazer in her professional life and a dedicated wife and mother in her private life. She is a highly respected international role model."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=313848&in_page_id=1770

[goclark]

22. Will she campaign for Georgie?