Blair never sends wife flowers
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-01 16:57

British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted on a television program broadcast Sunday he had never sent flowers to his wife Cherie and he had a youthful crush on Hollywood beauty Grace Kelly.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and wife Cherie. Blair admitted on a television program broadcast Sunday he had never sent flowers to Cherie.

Blair, who allowed Channel 4 interviewer June Sarpong to shadow him for two days last month, made other personal revelations when asked questions he rarely hears on the usual television political programs.

During the interviews for a program targeting 18-30 year olds, the prime minister admitted he sometimes has to "win it" when making public appearances and that he yearns to go out for a drink without being recognized.

However, the most dramatic revelation was his reply to Sarpong’s question whether he still sends his wife flowers, prompting his interviewer to shriek in disbelief.

"I've never sent her flowers. If I sent her flowers, she would get worried," Blair said.

But he added: "I am romantic. There are other ways of being romantic." Blair needed a few moments to recall the posters he had on his bedroom wall as a youngster, then revealed: "I'll tell you ... actually, when I was younger, I loved Grace Kelly."

Born in 1929, Kelly starred in films like Dial M For Murder, Rear Window and High Society in the mid-1950s, but quit acting to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, when Blair was just two years old.

The program also features Blair, dressed in a suit, being grilled by an audience of young people on issues ranging from the Iraq war to binge drinking, university fees and sex education. And it reveals the results of a straw poll of viewers that found two-thirds did not trust him, twice as many as for Conservative leader Michael Howard and three times as many as for the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.

Blair admitted he initially found it "odd" to be prime minister and to be rushed in motorcades from appointment to appointment, and worried his lifestyle left him "a bit isolated" from ordinary people.

Asked what he would do if he could be invisible for a day, Blair yearned for a more ordinary life, saying he would "just walk down the street and go to the pub ... just be absolutely normal."

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