TONY Blair has admitted wife Cherie should not have tried to buy two flats in Bristol in a deal that engulfed the pair in scandal when it emerged a petty crook had been involved.

But the former PM insists in his memoirs that there was no wrong doing and he simply "got hold of the wrong end of the stick" when he told spin doctor Alastair Campbell that convicted fraudster Peter Foster had nothing to do with purchase.

He brands "so-called Cheriegate" ridiculous and admits that national media criticism would ordinarily wash over him but this time it did not.

In the book, A Journey, Mr Blair also reveals he did not think Bristol South MP Dawn Primarolo was "right for government" but had to give her a job because she was one of Gordon Brown's key allies.

Spilling the beans on his successor Gordon Brown, he called him "maddening" and accused him of lacking "emotional intelligence" as he revealed the full scale of the war between the pair.

The diaries, a "personal account" of his decade at the top of British politics are, he insists, an attempt to show the human side of life in No 10.

There is little space devoted to the technical ins and outs of government and just over one page is devoted to Cheriegate, which dominated the headlines in 2002.

The flats were in a new development in Clifton, overlooking the cathedral.

The row centred on Peter Foster, a convicted conman, being involved in the negotiations.

Mr Blair said: "Cherie should probably never have tried to buy the Bristol flats, but Euan was at university there and she thought they might be useful.

"The trouble is you can't really do that as the prime minister's wife, for no better reason than you just can't.

"There was nothing the least wrong with the purchase itself, or the manner of it. Peter Foster's role was pretty minimal. Cherie had met him for five minutes: I never met or talked to him."

He said he was given minimal time to respond to the story so: "I, by phone got the wrong end of the stick from her (Cherie), said Foster had had nothing to do with the purchase, passed it on to Alastair and days later we were in the perennial media fire- storm.

"Then, as more and more came out about Foster and his history, it turned into something really ugly."

The book deals with the difficulties of government reshuffles, particularly keeping different factions within the party on-side.

Ms Primarolo, now Deputy Speaker, was once known as Red Dawn for her left-wing stance and spent a decade at the Treasury with Mr Brown, working in a junior ministerial role.

Mr Blair said: "There was the usual rigmarole over Michael Wills, Dawn Primarolo and others whom I didn't really think right for government for various reasons, but whom I did try to accommodate because they were strong supporters of his (Brown's)."

Ms Primarolo was unavailable for comment.

Looking back at the 2001 election campaign, he recalls how Labour were comfortably heading towards victory and the Conservatives were "falling apart at the seams", citing North Somerset MP Liam Fox as a prime offender.

"Their right wing started to say silly things, as when the then Shadow Health Secretary Liam Fox – actually clever – let his guard down and remarked: 'All we hear from Labour is poverty, poverty, poverty, la, la, la. It's just boring for Conservative members.'

"A partially true statement, but unwise."