AH Vignette: #ReadyforCherie
It was the junior staffers that were sent to deliver bad news to Cherie Blair at her campaign headquarters. The longtime frontrunner for the 2021 Labour leadership election was getting more and more bad news, a lot of it related to her questionable IT decisions when she was at the Foreign Office. The aide knocked loudly on Blair’s office door.
“Come in!” she shouted. The aide came in, apparently interrupting Cherie mid-doze.
The thing that struck the aide the most about her bosses’ office was a large number of picture frames. They were littered around her room, in a visual timeline of her political career. Her hugging her husband after he won Sedgefield in 1982. The Blairs hugging outside Downing Street just after Tony had won in ’94. Cherie Blair laughing with Hillary Clinton, the two First Ladies escaping from the dodgy donors scandals that were enveloping the Blair Government in the late 90s. Her waiting at the vote count in Liverpool in 2002, standing for Parliament herself this time. There was her introducing the current Prime Minister Sadiq Khan at a Labour conference, the two apparently reconciled from the bitter leadership election he had stolen from her. Then a more recent one, her with Secretary of State Julian Castro. The aide chuckled to herself. The 2020 US Presidential election ended up Julian and Joaquin Castro going head to head, and the world attention was captured by the sight of tow identical twins fighting it out for the most powerful job in the world. Julian had never gotten over his brother beating him. Not that it mattered, considering that President Ryan beat Joaquin anyway-
“You had something to say?”, Blair said.
“Mrs. Blair?”, the nervous aide asked, realizing that she’d jst been standing in silent thought. “Another union leader- Bob Crowe, I think, endorsed Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership.”
Cherie sighed. “Okay then.”
“Well, I think-“. The aide trailed off. “I’ll just go.”
Blair sat up. “Permission to speak freely granted.”
“Uh, okay. I don’t think it will make much of a difference either way. Your poll numbers are still very good, considering. We’re still going to win.”
Cherie’s smile tightened. “You can go now.” When the aide left and shut the door behind him, she sighed even louder.
Considering? Cherie thought. The leadership election was meant to be her coronation. She was not meant to be doing well, considering. Yes, Sadiq had beaten her at the last leadership election (which was also meant to be a coronation), but that was then. This time, she was going to be the cool Asian guy. Khan had all but cleared the path for her when he announced he would be stepping down the previous Autumn. Blair was not going to be outdone by another upstart, this time one who didn’t even have a smart suit or bother to shave.
At least the whole thing was going better than the Tory leadership race. Tom Hurd was meant to be the frontrunner, with the backing of half the shadow cabinet and two former Tory PMs behind him (it helped that they were his dad and his brother), but no. He was “low-energy” apparently, and he’d just pulled out because his poll numbers had crashed through the floor. There was Sajid Javid, the future of the Tory Party, at least until his debate performance failed the Turing Test. There were over a dozen other contenders, but they had been all but brushed aside by that outsider. He had been a personality for years, thriving in his political incorrectness and building a flashy, if mediocre business career. And now, he’d taken advantage of the reforms to the Tory leadership elections to make a big splash and turn the party on its head. He made loads of racist and sexist remarks, many directed at Sadiq and Cherie. Those were meant to sink him but only made him stronger. Somehow, the fact he’d opposed Britain leaving the EU and had once supported the Liberal Party (who remembers the Liberal party?), things that were meant to be anathema to Tory faithful, had meant nothing. Only now were his opponents uniting, probably behind Nigel Farage of all people. Somehow Farage, another thorn in the side of the Tory establishment, was now the moderate choice. Cherie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. It wouldn’t stop the frontrunner from remaining that.
This upheaval was only a matter of time, the pundits said. The genie had been let out of the bottle in 2012 when the terminally unpopular Nick Hurd resigned as the economy crashed. The elderly moderate Ken Clarke took charge, and to secure his support on the Tory right, he’d made Nadine Dorries Deputy Prime Minister of all people. She was a disaster and probably helped Sadiq win. But the folksy, hard-right, anti-everything Conservatism she embodied didn’t go away so easily. They called themselves the Cavalier movement in a misguided historical reference. They were deselecting moderate MPs now, and their MPs were filibustering the House of Commons and trying every trick in the book to stop the Labour agenda. People like Farage had got into parliament on the back of the Cavaliers and were now being swallowed by them. There had been a riot at the last rally for the Tory frontrunner, as his own evangelical supporters collided with leftwing protesters rallying against everything he stood for. Why could they be civil about it, like in America? The incessant heckling and hissing and Prime Minister’s Questions seemed to embody the toxic partisanship, as opposed to the quiet and civil discussions and deals made America’s Capitol.
Cherie got up and fiddled with her hair. She had to be at a rally in half an hour. The aide was right. The endorsement meant little. She was still going to be Britain’s first female Prime Minister. She was still going to defeat Jeremy Corbyn.
And once she’d done that, defeating the other Jeremy would be easy.