Tony Blair played by James Bond

When author Robert Harris published The Ghost, a political thriller about the nefarious deeds of a former prime minister and his freebie-loving wife, many read it as a thinly veiled attack on his one-time friend, Tony Blair. If indeed that was the case, Blair can at least take some comfort from the fact that the actor who will be playing the PM character in a screen adaptation of the novel is Pierce Brosnan, erstwhile James Bond and all round babe magnet.

In Harris's book, the premier is described as a man of little conviction, slavishly subservient to an incompetent US president, touchy about references to his student acting skills and with a brainy wife who "loved their summer freebies in the Caribbean". The “brainy wife” in the film will be played by Tilda Swindon, best known as an evil witch in the Narnia Chronicles, which some are saying is a perfect preparation for any portrayal of Cherie.