Cherie gets catty

You can almost see her claws come out. Cherie Booth, the wife of the PM and prominent barrister, couldn't be asked to sit through Gordon Brown's speech yesterday so she strolled next door where the chancellor speech was broadcast on a big screen. After Mr. Brown stated that "it has been a privilege for me to work with and for the most successful ever Labour leader and Prime Minister" Ms. Booth (she uses her maiden name professionally) was overheard by a Bloomberg reporter to say "well, that's a lie".

Number 10 has, of course, that she said any such thing. In the confusion of a busy conference centre she could just as easily have said "what a tie", "there's a fly" or "I'm so high" and been misheard. Yet as Simon Hoggart says in his Guardian column today "that nothing is really true until it has been denied by the No 10 press office".

For the conspiracy theorists the remarks were reported by Bloomberg and Bloomberg is owned by the Republican mayor of New York. Perhaps the Republicans wish to ditch the "special relationship" with the post-Blair Labour party and are trying to stir up the infighting. The story could just be a plant to encourage this. (Would we have believed it if reported by the Daily Mail?)

And I was worried the conference might be boring!