No 10 evasive over Clinton talk of Blair's heart scare

Published on Tuesday 28 October 2003 00:00

CONFUSION surrounded Tony Blair’s health last night after his official spokesman refused to deny outright reports that he had told the former US president, Bill Clinton, about his heart problems "a few years ago".

Downing Street remained unresponsive despite repeated requests to detail whether or not the Prime Minister had been concerned enough about his health to mention it to another world leader.

Mr Blair was rushed to hospital ten days ago with an irregular heart-beat that required electric shock treatment to restore it to normal.

His spokesmen had been at pains to deny the episode had occurred before and insisted Mr Blair had made a full recovery.

However, at the weekend a newspaper reported Mr Clinton as saying Mr Blair had spoken to him about heart problems when the two met to discuss policy.

The Sunday Mirror quoted Mr Clinton as saying: "I’ve known about this for a long time. He told me about it quite a few years ago.

"As soon as I heard what happened, I called to check he was OK. We had a talk and he sounded in good shape."

Mr Blair’s official spokesman said Downing Street had been "mystified" by the report, but refused to kill off speculation that the Prime Minister’s health had been failing for a number of years by denying it outright.

The spokesman said: "What we have said [about Mr Blair’s health] has been based on the opinion of those who have been responsible for the Prime Minister’s medical care. We are slightly mystified by this story as this is the first time this has happened.

"The Prime Minister does not have, and has never had, a heart condition and he has never had this complaint before. It would have needed treatment.

"What we have said has been based on the clinical advice of doctors. This has never happened before and there is no reason why this should re-occur.

"Were the Prime Minister to have had anything like this before, it would have required treatment. All we can go on is what the clinicians told us and, as they have said, this has not happened before and there is no reason why it should recur."

Asked if the Prime Minister had had the conversations with Mr Clinton, the spokesman replied: "I have not been present at every single conversation the Prime Minister has had with President Clinton.

"We are mystified by this story. The Prime Minister does not and has never had a heart condition."

However, as pressure mounted on Downing Street to give a fuller explanation of what Mr Blair may have said to Mr Clinton, his spokesman appeared later to confirm he had spoken to the former president after his heart scare.

He said: "The Prime Minister has spoken to a number of people subsequent to last Sunday, but I don’t plan to get into all the details of who he has spoken to."

The spokesman added: "We have spoken to, amongst other people, President Clinton’s press spokesman.

"She had spoken to President Clinton and he said he was asked if the Prime Minister’s health scare should cause him to resign and he said no, because from what he had heard it was an isolated problem.

"It’s not something that if you had had it before would just self-correct. You would have had to have treatment and he has not had treatment for it before.

"President Clinton’s own people are effectively denying the story."