Tony Blair, who served as UK Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007, has admitted in an interview for The Sunday Times that he has not done any household chores in 23 years.
The former British politician, 67, revealed he gave up doing things like washing dishes or cooking a meal after entering No 10 Downing Street in 1997 as the newly-elected Prime Minister.
Even after leaving office ten years later he couldn’t shake off the habit.
Blair, who currently runs the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said he had not done the laundry, cleaned a loo or even driven a car since then, with only one family meal to his credit of late.
"The honest answer is no... I did actually cook something for me and my youngest son [Leo] the other day. It was an omelette," he said.
After the family had to give up household staff due to the coronavirus lockdown since March, daily chores in their seven-bedroom house in Buckinghamshire have been shouldered by Blair’s wife Cherie and their children. The couple were isolating with their son, 35, a football agent, his pregnant wife and their two children.
Reflecting on how entering Downing Street radically changed his life, Tony Blair said he found it impossible to go back to his customary routine after leaving office.
“My life’s not been normal since moving into Downing Street… You have the whole security apparatus around you and it just changes. So there’s a lot that isn’t normal,” Blair confessed.
Other former British PMs, such as David Cameron and Theresa May, have been spotted on occasion shopping at supermarkets, however, Blair admitted he never does the shopping.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the politician insisted he had not ventured out of his home for three months, in the longest spell under one roof since he “was a child”.
But Blair admitted that the “family time” was something he enjoyed and would look back on fondly.