She constantly worries about money, defends her luxury holidays and New Age friends, and claims that the problems between her and Gordon Brown are 'nothing personal'. Cherie Blair has set out to demolish many of the myths surrounding her in a remarkably candid autobiography published amid great secrecy.
She reveals that she was terrified at taking on 'a mortgage the size of Mount Snowdon' to buy their £3.5m house in Connaught Square, central London, when her husband's future was in doubt. 'Yes, it was very scary,' she said in an interview to promote her book Speaking for Myself, 'particularly since I was the person who had to support it. Because whatever else happened, we had to meet the monthly payment and it was down to me, because no one else was going to meet it, were they?' This she did through her legal work as a QC and through lucrative speaking engagements in America.
But even now, having just purchased a £4m Buckinghamshire country pile as a weekend retreat because 'Tony has been lucky enough to get a job which means we can afford a country house', she still cannot shake off her fears of financial insecurity, fears that she attributes to a childhood in Liverpool, raised by her mother.
'Coming from my background, I don't think I will ever feel secure about money because I lived in a household which never fell into abject poverty but we were always on the line,' she told The Times, which is serialising her book. 'I think one has to remember that I know what it is like to get to the end of the week and have no money left. And sometimes Tony teases me about being silly about whether we can afford things or not.'
Their second home, which used to belong to the actor Sir John Gielgud, is 'not like Chequers except that it is a country house', she insisted. 'And one thing Chequers taught us is we like getting out of London at weekends. And, for the last year it has been a shame because we haven't had a place to escape to.'
Today, with her husband's lucrative roles as Middle East envoy and adviser to JP Morgan, among others, she admits to feeling extremely fortunate. 'I think that this girl from 15 Ferndale Road has been to Balmoral, to see the Queen, to Buckingham Palace, met the Pope, had Stevie Wonder at the White House sing My Cherie Amour, how lucky is that?'
The book is a rebuttal of allegations that, since she moved into Number 10, gained her a reputation as a greedy, freebie-grabbing wife trading on her husband's success. She defends her choice of Carole Caplin as personal adviser, which led to questions about her judgment. 'Carole isn't dodgy at all. In fact the one thing you can say about Carole is, although Alastair [Campbell] was convinced she was going to do a kiss and tell, she has never kissed and told,' she said.
And the New Age nonsense? 'That's what the press said, but basically I'm a good Catholioc girl and I'm not really into New Age nonsense.' And the crystals? 'There was that round one I wore once, but that wasn't even given to me by Carole, but by my sister.' She even reveals it was her idea that Caplin give Blair massages 'because I thought it was good for him to be relaxed. I trusted her and I certainly completely trusted him'. The good thing about Carole, she said, was 'she kept me thin'.
The Blair marriage is a complete partnership, she said. 'In our marriage we don't have a number one and a number two. It is much more an equal partnership. But in Downing Street, the PM is number one and everything revolves around him and the system wasn't used to having someone like me around.'
Answering criticism of the free holidays they enjoyed at celebrities' villas, she said they had once tried renting privately and pictures of their Seychelles retreat were published before they set foot on the plane.
She also denies rumours that she and Sarah Brown, Gordon Brown's wife, do not get on. 'That's not true,' she said. 'To be honest the extraordinary thing is we didn't really socialise and she only married Gordon as a time when we were already in Number 10 and there isn't much time for us to see our old friends or even new ones.'
And of her rumoured loathing of the present Prime Minister, she claims: 'The problem between me and Gordon is not anything personal. It is because I thought my husband was the best person for the job and it's a damn difficult job. As far as Gordon's impatience about [Tony] moving on was a difficulty, I thought it was a difficulty Tony could do without.'
· Speaking for Myself is published by Little, Brown on 15 May, priced £18.99