“Should it be the case that [Tony and Cherie Blair] have purchased any property, the negotiations for that would have been conducted by Mrs. Blair and her legal advisers.”
—Spokesperson forBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair, as quoted byMichael White and Angelique Chrisafis in “Blairs Bought Flat ‘Without Conman’s Help,’ ” in the Dec. 3 Guardian. Ten Downing Street was responding to a report in the Dec. 1 Mail on Sunday that Peter Foster, who has previously been jailed in Britain, the United States, and Australia, negotiated the purchase of a Bristol flat on Cherie Blair’s behalf. The flat is for the Blairs’ son Euan to live in while he attends college.
“I’ll deal with the letting agent. You can relax.”
—Oct. 31 e-mail from Peter Foster to Cherie Blair concerning the Blairs’ rental of the Bristol flat, as quoted by Gordon Rayner and Richard Shears, “Cherie, a Crook, and the Proof No. 10 Lied,” in the Dec. 5 Daily Mail.
“I cannot thank you enough Peter for taking these negotiations over for me”
—Nov. 9 e-mail from Cherie Blair to Foster, as reported in the Dec. 5 Daily Mail story.
“He started to offer me what seemed like helpful advice, which at the time I saw no reason to reject. He was not my financial adviser, but I should not have allowed a situation to develop where Tony’s spokesman said he played no part in the negotiations and I take full responsibility for that.”
—Dec. 10 televised statement by Cherie Blair.
(Click here for the Guardian’s “Cheriegate” timeline, and here for additional Guardian coverage of the affair.)
Got a whopper? Send it to chatterbox@slate.com. To be considered, an entry must be an unambiguously false statement paired with an unambiguous refutation, and both must be derived from some appropriately reliable public source. Preference will be given to newspapers and other documents that Chatterbox can link to online.
Dec. 6, 2002: Hiro Ueki
Nov. 29, 2002: Egan Acres Tree Farm
Nov. 22, 2002: Dr. Janet Travell
Nov. 16, 2002: Fox News
Nov. 15, 2002: Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y
Nov. 8, 2002: William Webster
Nov. 1, 2002: Harvey Pitt
Oct. 25, 2002: George W. Bush
Oct. 18, 2002: North Korea
Oct. 11, 2002: Michael Bloomberg
Sept. 27, 2002: Rep. Tom Tancredo
Sept. 13, 2002: Al-Muhajiroun
Sept. 6, 2002: National Republican Congressional Committee
Aug. 29, 2002: Eddie Joe Lloyd
Aug. 22, 2002: Larry Klayman
Aug. 2, 2002: Al Gore
July 26, 2002: Princeton admissions dean Stephen LeMenager
July 19, 2002: James Traficant
July 12, 2002: Maryland Lt. Gov. candidate Michael S. Steele
July 5, 2002: Hesham Mohamed Hadayet
June 28, 2002: WorldCom
June 21, 2002: Terry Lynn Barton
June 14, 2002: Tom Ridge
June 7, 2002: Former FBI Deputy Director Weldon Kennedy
May 31, 2002: Ari Fleischer
May 23, 2002: Condoleezza Rice
May 17, 2002: Robert Mueller
May 9, 2002: Karl Rove
May 3, 2002: Gen. Richard Myers
April 25, 2002: Donald Rumsfeld
April 18, 2002: George W. Bush
April 11, 2002: The Rev. Robert J. Banks, archdiocese of Boston
April 5, 2002: George W. Bush
March 29, 2002: Major League Baseball
March 21, 2002: Billy Graham
March 14, 2002: INS commissioner James W. Ziglar
March 8, 2002: Robert Zoellick and the U.S. steel industry
Feb. 28, 2002: Al Sharpton
Feb. 22, 2002: Olympic skating judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne
Feb. 14, 2002: Kenneth Lay
Feb. 8, 2002: Enron spokeswoman Peggy Mahoney
Jan. 31, 2002: Monsanto
Jan. 24, 2002: Linda Chavez
Jan. 17, 2002: George W. Bush
Jan. 10, 2002: Simon & Schuster
Jan. 4, 2002: The Associated Press
(Click here to access the Whopper Archive for 2001.)
