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| Beware powerful women intoxicated with their agendas | Beware powerful women intoxicated with their agendas |
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| ‘Confidential”. “My friend from Q”. “Our friend”. In emails newly released by the US State Department, Cherie Blair demonstrates to her old enemies in Whitehall how they erred by overlooking one of the most imaginative amateur diplomats since the old Etonian, James Lonsdale-Bryans, who flew to Italy in 1940 and attempted to strike a peace deal with the Nazis. | ‘Confidential”. “My friend from Q”. “Our friend”. In emails newly released by the US State Department, Cherie Blair demonstrates to her old enemies in Whitehall how they erred by overlooking one of the most imaginative amateur diplomats since the old Etonian, James Lonsdale-Bryans, who flew to Italy in 1940 and attempted to strike a peace deal with the Nazis. |
| It has been Mrs Blair’s scarcely less ambitious project not merely to strengthen Anglo-Qatari relations, but to cultivate in the US, also, a greater appreciation of a kingdom that is perhaps best known to Britons for its savagery towards foreign workers, hospitality to the Afghan Taliban and soon-to-be-completed annexation of London . In just a few years, the Qatari royal family has achieved with hard cash – and, no doubt, credit where it’s due, the undying support of Mrs Blair – something of which Napoleon and Hitler could only dream: the permanent besmirching, with the Shard, of the capital’s skyline; the colonisation of its iconic buildings and businesses; even the affections, it is said, of the royal family. | It has been Mrs Blair’s scarcely less ambitious project not merely to strengthen Anglo-Qatari relations, but to cultivate in the US, also, a greater appreciation of a kingdom that is perhaps best known to Britons for its savagery towards foreign workers, hospitality to the Afghan Taliban and soon-to-be-completed annexation of London . In just a few years, the Qatari royal family has achieved with hard cash – and, no doubt, credit where it’s due, the undying support of Mrs Blair – something of which Napoleon and Hitler could only dream: the permanent besmirching, with the Shard, of the capital’s skyline; the colonisation of its iconic buildings and businesses; even the affections, it is said, of the royal family. |
| It is a further testament to Mrs Blair’s under-the-radar approach to international relations that, had it not been for her friend Mrs Clinton’s indifference to online security, we might never have discovered the former’s persistence and loyalty to the (Qatari) crown. In 2009, while Mrs Blair’s husband was busy, as ever, juggling Israel and luxury goods, Mrs Blair was not, as previously believed, fully occupied as a QC and charity worker, venture capitalist and mistress of the property empire she founded in the bizarre buy-to-let venture inspired by her personal trainer’s then boyfriend, a notorious conman. | It is a further testament to Mrs Blair’s under-the-radar approach to international relations that, had it not been for her friend Mrs Clinton’s indifference to online security, we might never have discovered the former’s persistence and loyalty to the (Qatari) crown. In 2009, while Mrs Blair’s husband was busy, as ever, juggling Israel and luxury goods, Mrs Blair was not, as previously believed, fully occupied as a QC and charity worker, venture capitalist and mistress of the property empire she founded in the bizarre buy-to-let venture inspired by her personal trainer’s then boyfriend, a notorious conman. |
| In reality, as disclosed in an exchange of 19 emails, Mrs Blair was as much, if not more, committed as her husband to forging better western-Middle-East relations by way, in this case, of a meeting between Mrs Clinton and Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, the second of three (concurrent) wives of Qatar’s former ruler. The friends work together, for some reason, on disability in Qatar. “I am sure the conversation,” Blair assured Clinton, “would be about the US/Qatar relationship generally.” | In reality, as disclosed in an exchange of 19 emails, Mrs Blair was as much, if not more, committed as her husband to forging better western-Middle-East relations by way, in this case, of a meeting between Mrs Clinton and Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, the second of three (concurrent) wives of Qatar’s former ruler. The friends work together, for some reason, on disability in Qatar. “I am sure the conversation,” Blair assured Clinton, “would be about the US/Qatar relationship generally.” |
| If Mrs Clinton was surprised that, when the sheikha wished to get her country’s “relationship with the US on to a more positive footing”, she should have picked as her intermediary Cherie Blair, QC and healthcare speculator, she did not show it. And for all one knows, Mrs Blair’s freelance foreign office is already the first port of call for any self-respecting diplomat. At any rate, Blair has finally avenged herself on a “system” that, as chronicled in her autobiography, consistently refused to recognise her towering diplomatic potential, even after she was deployed, in 2001, to publicise the oppression of burqa-wearing Afghan women. Later, in 2003, she was there to muster support for war. “I became ever more determined,” she wrote, “not to sit on the sidelines and do nothing.” | If Mrs Clinton was surprised that, when the sheikha wished to get her country’s “relationship with the US on to a more positive footing”, she should have picked as her intermediary Cherie Blair, QC and healthcare speculator, she did not show it. And for all one knows, Mrs Blair’s freelance foreign office is already the first port of call for any self-respecting diplomat. At any rate, Blair has finally avenged herself on a “system” that, as chronicled in her autobiography, consistently refused to recognise her towering diplomatic potential, even after she was deployed, in 2001, to publicise the oppression of burqa-wearing Afghan women. Later, in 2003, she was there to muster support for war. “I became ever more determined,” she wrote, “not to sit on the sidelines and do nothing.” |
| A further attraction for “her highness”, as Blair perhaps jokingly calls her Qatari chum, given her recorded abhorrence for antique rigmarole (“I never really got the hang of the protocol business”), was the “woman-to-woman” aspect of this date. Whether the sheikha was signalling, here, her enthusiasm for a debate about women’s rights under sharia law in Qatar, or for a more intimate chat relating, say, to the relative merits of polygamy versus philandering, this women-only aspect was plainly considered an advantage by all concerned. | A further attraction for “her highness”, as Blair perhaps jokingly calls her Qatari chum, given her recorded abhorrence for antique rigmarole (“I never really got the hang of the protocol business”), was the “woman-to-woman” aspect of this date. Whether the sheikha was signalling, here, her enthusiasm for a debate about women’s rights under sharia law in Qatar, or for a more intimate chat relating, say, to the relative merits of polygamy versus philandering, this women-only aspect was plainly considered an advantage by all concerned. |
| The meeting duly went beautifully and Mrs Blair expressed her satisfaction with the sort of Manichaean gush one recalls from her husband’s man-to-man sessions with George Bush. “It’s fantastic to see you doing so well,” she told Mrs Clinton, “and when I see what a difference you are making it reminds me why politics is too important to be left to the bad people.” | The meeting duly went beautifully and Mrs Blair expressed her satisfaction with the sort of Manichaean gush one recalls from her husband’s man-to-man sessions with George Bush. “It’s fantastic to see you doing so well,” she told Mrs Clinton, “and when I see what a difference you are making it reminds me why politics is too important to be left to the bad people.” |
| Responding to questions about her pro-Qatari efforts, last week, Blair’s office reiterated that: “She was merely acting as a conduit – on a woman-to-woman basis – between Sheikha Mozah and Hillary Clinton.” | Responding to questions about her pro-Qatari efforts, last week, Blair’s office reiterated that: “She was merely acting as a conduit – on a woman-to-woman basis – between Sheikha Mozah and Hillary Clinton.” |
| In strictly physical terms, of course, it would have been as tricky for the “basis” to have been any different. So if we discard the possibility that “woman to woman” is meant as a euphemism for “too like a hen night to matter”, the spokesperson’s intention was, presumably, to advertise the heightened prospect of international harmony that justified Mrs Blair’s exercise, given women’s visceral tendency to bond with other women. | In strictly physical terms, of course, it would have been as tricky for the “basis” to have been any different. So if we discard the possibility that “woman to woman” is meant as a euphemism for “too like a hen night to matter”, the spokesperson’s intention was, presumably, to advertise the heightened prospect of international harmony that justified Mrs Blair’s exercise, given women’s visceral tendency to bond with other women. |
| If that seems a somewhat risky assumption, thinking of the difficulties that Mrs Blair herself once experienced with a chilly, but indisputably female Princess Anne, it is no more so than that behind Woman’s Hour’s latest “power list”. Listeners, the programme-makers believe, will find nothing risible in second place for a woman whose principle talent, it’s often alleged, is to cultivate self-loathing in others. Which is admittedly a power of sorts, for Anna Wintour, and not one that either Angela Merkel or Christine Lagarde is ever likely to enjoy. | If that seems a somewhat risky assumption, thinking of the difficulties that Mrs Blair herself once experienced with a chilly, but indisputably female Princess Anne, it is no more so than that behind Woman’s Hour’s latest “power list”. Listeners, the programme-makers believe, will find nothing risible in second place for a woman whose principle talent, it’s often alleged, is to cultivate self-loathing in others. Which is admittedly a power of sorts, for Anna Wintour, and not one that either Angela Merkel or Christine Lagarde is ever likely to enjoy. |
| But traditionally Woman’s Hour has been against egregious attacks on female self-esteem. Even if the whole point of a list like this is, obviously, to generate a Woman’s Hour-validating tide of futile controversy, and that programme’s audience must, statistically, include a handful of Galliano fans and Met Ball attendees who are totes thrilled for Anna, it must have required a prodigious commitment to insensate, hormonally based solidarity for the judges to assume homelier listeners would endorse their passion for this fur-wearing colossus of the fashion industry. Not forgetting Ms Wintour’s own, sisterly outreach work, back in 2011, on behalf of Asma al-Assad, “A Rose in the Desert”. Even the broad-based Women’s Equality party assumes its donors are uniting around something more complicated than biology. | But traditionally Woman’s Hour has been against egregious attacks on female self-esteem. Even if the whole point of a list like this is, obviously, to generate a Woman’s Hour-validating tide of futile controversy, and that programme’s audience must, statistically, include a handful of Galliano fans and Met Ball attendees who are totes thrilled for Anna, it must have required a prodigious commitment to insensate, hormonally based solidarity for the judges to assume homelier listeners would endorse their passion for this fur-wearing colossus of the fashion industry. Not forgetting Ms Wintour’s own, sisterly outreach work, back in 2011, on behalf of Asma al-Assad, “A Rose in the Desert”. Even the broad-based Women’s Equality party assumes its donors are uniting around something more complicated than biology. |
| Supposing this instinctive, woman-to-woman bonding is capable of suppressing rational thought, there must be an argument for fighting any compulsion that would lead a principled person like, say, Cherie Blair or Hillary Clinton, to overlook conventional objections to – to name just a few Qatari traditions – imprisonment for poets, the use of slave workers, the killing of homosexuals in accordance with sharia law. If emotional attachment to “my friend from Q” has indeed led the once proselytisingly anti-burqa Mrs Blair to appreciate the case for, say, lashing women adulterers, and persuaded this ostentatiously anti-royal figure to perform undreamed-of acts of sycophancy, we can only rejoice that no Qatari money seems to be involved – excluding a donation to Mrs Blair’s charities – and wait for them to fall out. | Supposing this instinctive, woman-to-woman bonding is capable of suppressing rational thought, there must be an argument for fighting any compulsion that would lead a principled person like, say, Cherie Blair or Hillary Clinton, to overlook conventional objections to – to name just a few Qatari traditions – imprisonment for poets, the use of slave workers, the killing of homosexuals in accordance with sharia law. If emotional attachment to “my friend from Q” has indeed led the once proselytisingly anti-burqa Mrs Blair to appreciate the case for, say, lashing women adulterers, and persuaded this ostentatiously anti-royal figure to perform undreamed-of acts of sycophancy, we can only rejoice that no Qatari money seems to be involved – excluding a donation to Mrs Blair’s charities – and wait for them to fall out. |
| Having once, myself, been lucky enough to enjoy a woman-to-woman tête-à-tête with Mrs Blair, when she summoned me for a telling off, I can certainly attest to the occasional failure of a similar sexual identity to transcend personal differences. Above all, I recall, she seemed mystified to have been criticised by a member of her own sex. I wonder if this ever happens to men? | Having once, myself, been lucky enough to enjoy a woman-to-woman tête-à-tête with Mrs Blair, when she summoned me for a telling off, I can certainly attest to the occasional failure of a similar sexual identity to transcend personal differences. Above all, I recall, she seemed mystified to have been criticised by a member of her own sex. I wonder if this ever happens to men? |