Pony club puts bite on Cherie's big party

[emad]

Sunday Times:
Nicholas Hellen, Social Affairs Editor



MILITANT pony club members and their pro-hunting parents delayed the start of Cherie Blair’s 50th birthday party last night after blockading Chequers in defiance of the government’s plans to ban foxhunting. Police tried to keep the narrow roads surrounding the prime minister’s Buckinghamshire retreat clear as 500 protesters besieged the estate with tractors, trailers, horseboxes and four-wheel drive vehicles. As police became concerned at the size of the protest, black-tied guests attempting to reach the party found themselves diverted to the car park of a Tesco supermarket in Princes Risborough.

Bemused late-night shoppers were greeted by the sight of the Blair’s friends, including Labour’s chief fundraiser Lord Levy and his wife Gilda, waiting in the car park in their rain-lashed limousines. Eventually guests were driven through the union flag waving supporters of the Countryside Alliance in minibuses. Among those caught up in the protest were the band booked for the evening when a teenage pony club member lay across a Chequers�Eentrance blocking their van. A 16-year-old protester said: “They told us that they were being paid £30,000 to play at this party and we were ruining it.�EBut the protest was good- natured. Demonstrator Harry Smith, from Somerset, said: “Some of us have brought our kids with us �Ewe want this whole thing to have a great atmosphere.�E

And eventually the prime minister defused the protest by inviting two huntmistresses, Emma Pearce from the Vale of Aylesbury hunt and Polly Portwin from the Bicester, into Chequers for a fireside chat. “It was cordial, we sat down, he was willing to negotiate,�EPearce told the crowd who, after three cheers, decided their tactics had made the point and sportingly called off the demo. The party, for about 80 of Cherie’s closest friends, is seen as a barometer of the regard in which members of Labour’s inner “family�Eare held. Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, was invited, as was Lord Bragg and his wife, Cate Haste, who with Blair has written The Goldfish Bowl, a book about spouses in Downing Street.

But Alastair Campbell and Fiona Millar, the couple who served the prime minister and his wife for a decade, were snubbed. They are among a batch of former intimates of the Blairs who have been punished for failures of loyalty or commitment during recent crises at No 10. Millar, Cherie’s closest aide from 1995 to 2003, said this weekend: “I’m not going because I haven’t been invited. Alastair isn’t going because he hasn’t been invited. I don’t know who is going because I haven’t been invited.�ELord Puttnam and Greg Dyke, the former director- general of the BBC, were also among the former favourites who did not attend. Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, were not expected either although Downing Street played down their absence emphasising that the party was a “private affair�E not a political occasion. The party also marked the public rehabilitation of Caplin, whose former boyfriend Peter Foster, a convicted conman, helped Blair to buy two flats in Bristol. The approach of her 50th birthday has spurred Blair to carve out a prominent new role for herself. She is embarking on a paid speaking tour of the United States; acting as an ambassador for London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics; and, the US State Department confirmed, has been involved in President George W Bush’s diplomatic drive to promote freedom in the Middle East.
Gail Rebuck, wife of Tony Blair’s pollster Lord Gould and chief executive of the publishing company Random House, is bringing out The Goldfish Bowl, in which Blair seeks to redefine the role of a prime minister’s spouse.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2761-1258463,00.html

Cherry Bush's birthday is 23 September....

Edit: don't know why the Sunday Times is automatically coming up with these chinese characters in the text of the story....sorry about this maybe it's this internet place's monitoring of paysites...

[emad]

1. Blair throws lavish bash for 9/11cover-up mastermind

snip from TheSpoof:

Downing Street, Friday - (Rioters) The gold-leaf embossed, guilt-edged party invitations stand proud on the mantlepieces of some of the UK's worst fraudsters, money launderers, terrorists, perjurers, blackmailers and George W Bush sycophants tonight as the Prime Minister prepares to throw a lavish champagne reception for his wife's 50th birthday at the official countryside residence of Chequers on the third anniversary of the 9/11 massacre in Lower Manhattan.

Lord Sainsbury, Lord Levy, Sir Richard Branson, Gordon Brown, Andrew Parker Bowles, General Sir Michael Jackson, Lord Irvine, Alastair Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove, Dame Stella Rimington and Sir John Scarlett head the A List of smug got-away-with-it felons, confident of their criminal histories being forever whitewashed under Peter Mandelson's Good Friday Agreement and underpinned by the UK's notorious paedophile charter, the Data Protection Act (Soham Amendment, Ian Huntley clause)........

Metropolitan Police Political Protection Squad officers will patrol the countryside around Chequers armed with a range of weapons including taser stun guns and lie-detectors, in case ugly rumours about Mrs Blair's late father, ex-Mirror Newspapers boss and convicted fraudster Robert Maxwell, resurface and prompt a mass reaction of spontaneous projectile vomiting from residents of leafy South Bucks.

A spokesman for No 10 Downing Street said today:"It will be a low-key, family-oriented event, funded by recent VAT increases on domestic utility bills such as gas, electricity, water, etc., and will form a part of the Labour Party's forthcoming election manifesto."
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s1i6555

[krkaufman]

2. Hmmmm... Blair meets with protesters... interesting.

Of course, BushRove would frame it as "negotiating with terrorists."

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. This is what Bush should have done

When Max Cleland showed up at the pig farm a couple of weeks ago.

Instead, he hide inside and sent out his secret service to get rid of them.

[Tsiyu]

6. My thoughts as well n/t

[Darth_Kitten]

3. LOL......lifestyles of the rich and hopelessly simple and flaky........

who hasn't read this and laughed out loud?

I don't know.....can't people fight for any good causes anymore??? :D

The FitzHubert Hodges and the McCretton Rhys-McTartans didn't get invited to the party... :D and Mrs Smythe McFadden Riley almost had her gown splashed when a tractor roared by..... EGADS!!!!!

(sorry, I'm just having some fun!!!)

[xchrom]

4. pro fox hunting protestors?!?!

lock them up and throw away the key.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The little bit of political news at the end is interesting

"She ..., the US State Department confirmed, has been involved in President George W Bush’s diplomatic drive to promote freedom in the Middle East".

Her remarks in this area in the past weren't appreciated by the pro-Israeli side:
Cherie Blair forced to apologise over suicide bombing comments
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=306665

Appearing with Queen Rania of Jordan at the launch of a £500,000 charity appeal for Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Prime Minister's wife had earlier told reporters: "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress."
...
A spokeswoman for Mrs Blair tonight said: "If any offence has been taken from the interpretation of her comments then Mrs Blair is obviously sorry.

"None was intended and it goes without saying that she condemns the atrocity today in the strongest possible terms along with all right-minded people.

"She did not and never would she ever condone suicide bombers or say they had no choice."

A fairly reasonable comment, in my view, but a couple of years ago, it wasn't what Israel wanted to hear. I'm surprised at the American government bringing her in to more Middle Eastern business.