Cherie tells of her rift with Alastair

Moderation and probity are not words usually associated with Alastair Campbell (pictured), yet remarkably this is how the former Downing Street spin-doctor appears in the light of Cherie Blair's "too much information" autobiography, Speaking for Myself, serialised in the Times. According to Mrs Blair, tensions between herself and Campbell first erupted on the day of her husband's inaugural conference speech as Labour leader in 1994 when Campbell discovered the Sun newspaper was about to publish topless photos of Cherie's "style guru" Carole Caplin.

Bursting into Mrs Blair's hotel room, Campbell spotted Caplan: "I thought I told you to stay away from the limelight. But, oh no, you knew better. And now the press are on to you. And now our beautiful day has been ruined by this ridiculous woman."

Blair himself was equally scornful. "My God, this woman has been in our house. She's been in our bedroom sorting through our clothes... And to think I let you talk me into having a massage [from Caplan]."

Relations soured further when it emerged that Caplan's then-boyfriend, fraudster and conman Peter Foster, had helped Cherie purchase two flats in Bristol at a knock-down price in 2002, a claim that Mrs Blair initially denied. Campbell dutifully told the press there was no truth in it, only to discover Mrs Blair had lied. She says of Campbell: "I had never seen him so angry. As he saw it, he had lied to save my face and he was determined if anyone went down for this it wasn't going to be Alastair Campbell."

Meanwhile, in reaction to yesterday's revelations from Mrs Blair - that her son Leo was conceived during a visit to Balmoral because she didn't pack her "contraceptive equipment" for fear of embarrassment after her toilet bag and its "range of unmentionables" had been opened by staff on a previous occasion - courtiers at Buckingham Palace have dismissed her claim outright.

"The woman is talking arrant nonsense," the Daily Telegraph reports a courtier saying. "All female guests of Her Majesty are assigned a maid ­ and, in the case of a man, a valet ­ who will always offer to unpack their bags. It is never done, however, without the guest's explicit consent."