Cherie Blair’s Chirac tirade helped secure 2012 Games: Coe

A blistering tirade by Cherie Blair, the wife of ex-British premier Tony Blair, against French president Jacques Chirac played a key role in winning the Olympics for London, organiser Sebastian Coe has claimed. In extracts from Coe’s book published in the Times on Monday, the former London Organising Committee chairman revealed that Mrs Blair rounded on Chirac at a crucial Olympic reception over comments he made about Britain’s cuisine. The leader’s wife went at Chirac “like a banshee” at the 2005 event in Singapore, causing the embarrassed French leader to leave the function before he had chance to lobby potential voters on behalf of the Paris 2012 bid, said Coe. “I spotted Cherie heading like a heat-seeking missile towards the French contingent,” he recalled. “Above the hubbub her voice rang loud and clear. ‘I gather you’ve been saying rude things about our food’, she said, at a volume that would have done justice to a packed courtroom.