Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair was urged to pay back thousands of pounds worth of discounts he received on designer clothes, according to newly-released records.According to documents handed over to the National Archives, Downing Street officials advised Sir Tony to repay more than £7,600 for items purchased from designers Nicole Farhi and Paul Smith.
The discounts were negotiated by Mrs Blair’s style adviser and lifestyle coach Carole Caplin.She claimed she had secured discounts of up to 60% on the designer items as she bought them wholesale, but officials were concerned that the large discounts would not be available to ordinary members of the public.The prime minister and Mrs Blair spent £8,021.50 between July 2001 to December 2002 with Ms Farhi alone, when the retail price would have been £20,855.
In total, the couple had received discounts amounting to £12,833.50 more than the total they had spent on the clothes.
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Carole Caplin, who secured the discounts, told officials she had bought the clothes wholesale. File pic: PA
While Clare Sumner, a No 10 official, wrote in correspondence that “we are not arguing that anything has been done wrong, indeed nothing has,” she said: “The issue is one of public perception.”
It was ultimately agreed by officials that while Mrs Blair did not receive any “preferential or beneficial treatment,” the prime minister should pay the full amount.They advised him to write cheques for £1,116 to Mr Smith and £6,532 to Ms Farhi. Ms Sumner also wrote: “For you, we still think the simplest thing is to pay for your clothes in full and that Carole should be made aware of this for the future.”
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The concern over discounts has similarities with Sir Keir Starmer’s freebies row last year, where the current prime minister came under fire after Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli gave MPs tens of thousands of pounds to cover clothes, holidays and work events.Other declassified files released to the National Archives showed that the then US ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer warned Sir Tony it would be “politically impossible” to stop George W Bush from invading Iraq.Records also show that Sir Tony was gifted guitars by U2 frontman Bono, Bryan Adams, and the then president of Mexico Vicente Fox.
