'Mirror' editor says Cherie Blair has been trying to get him fired
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Your support makes all the difference.The editor of the Daily Mirror claimed yesterday that Cherie Blair had been trying to get him sacked.
Piers Morgan, who has overseen a number of anti-Government stories in the traditionally Labour-supporting paper, said the Prime Minister's wife had taken it as "a personal betrayal".
Mr Morgan said in an interview with The Spectator magazine: "I said to Blair recently, 'I would appreciate it if you stopped the missus trying to get me sacked'."
The editor went on: "Every time she sits next to one of my bosses, she tries to get me fired. Blair is more sensible and understanding that we can't arse-lick. She takes it as a personal betrayal.
"She is too political. But she hasn't got me fired and it doesn't do her husband any favours for her to go around demanding the heads of editors."
Mr Morgan said he had a "very hard relationship" with the Prime Minister's wife and accused her of causing "a lot of the problems between Tony and the media".
In the most forthright attack yet by any national newspaper editor on Mrs Blair, Mr Morgan added: "She is too aggressive. She bestows her patronage and then removes it on a whim.
"We had a Barnardo's campaign appeal – she is president of the charity – that was going to run in this paper with her endorsement. At the last minute it was taken from us and given to the News of the World. Apparently she had been upset about our leaders on Stephen Byers. Why do that at a time when our relationship is fractious anyway?"
During the course of the interview with Petronella Wyatt, the Spectator columnist, Mr Morgan took a telephone call. It was Mrs Blair herself on the line.
"You couldn't make it up, could you?" Mr Morgan joked to Ms Wyatt.
Then he asked his secretary to tell Mrs Blair that he would ring her back. "That is quite comical. Maybe she has come to her senses," he remarked.
"Cherie causes trouble between Blair and Brown because she hates him," Mr Morgan added. "If you live next door, you have to get on with your neighbour. The Blair bubble is bursting."
A Downing Street spokesman said it would be studying the article.
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