Portrait of the Week – 14 December 2002

The purchase by Miss Cherie Booth, Mrs Tony Blair, for a total of just over half a million pounds of two flats in Bristol, one for her son Euan to use when attending university, set off a lively game of hunt the issue. Someone called Mr Peter Foster was found to have acted on her behalf in the deal, and he turned out to be a convicted conman, specialising in unreliable slimming remedies and awaiting deportation to Australia; he exchanged many emails with Mrs Blair, one of his saying: ‘Your pleasure is my purpose’. The Prime Minister’s spokesman had earlier denied Mr Foster’s part in buying the flats. He is the boyfriend of Miss Carole Caplin, who, it emerged, as Mrs Blair’s ‘lifestyle guru’ interested her in ridding herself of ‘toxins’ in a shower. And then it was discovered that the flats had been acquired by the blind trust set up to administer the Blairs’ assets independently.