ALL this talk of the Blairs' lifestyle guru has me confused. I have no idea what a lifestyle guru is - or, come to that, a lifestyle. Do we all have one or are they only available to the rich and credulous?

'Life' is something you live, 'style' is something you have or haven't got. Put the two together and you have a shiny, happy label for getting on with it and seeing what turns out in the end.

For ten years, the Prime Minister and his wife, Cherie, apparently employed the services of Carole Caplin, a sort of paid best friend who advised on everything from fashion and fitness to diet.

The former glamour model is said to have had the run of Downing Street, until her exclusion in April. She has now been warned that she would face legal action if she attempted to write a book or newspaper articles about her relationship with the Prime Minister and his wife.

That may be so, but Caplin has said much in print in line with her job description as "a consultant and writer in areas of health, fitness and well-being". Take this from Hello! magazine: "Sometimes I feel like sitting on the floor and having a good old scream"; which is funny - because that's exactly the reaction I have every time the silly woman opens her mouth.

You can't blame Carole Caplin, as gullibility is in endless supply. If wealthy people are willing to pay for vapid advice, new-age speak and tips on what not to wear, that is their outlook.

It's just alarming when the Prime Minister is among those who cough up to hear such waffle and poppycock. Tony Blair is a successful and driven man - so why does he need a lifestyle guru? Especially one whose utterances include the following: "My aim is to point people in the right direction. It is up to them to change."

Fortunately, it seems that Tony Blair eventually pointed Caplin in the right direction - towards the door.

Carole Caplin's time within Downing Street was down to Cherie rather than Tony. Normally, I don't hold with knocking Cherie, finding it distasteful. Cherie makes too easy a target, and over the past six years or so she has come in for a lot of vindictive comment. Still, Caplin saw her coming, didn't she?

A lifestyle guru is a modern sort of mountebank, selling quack advice instead of false medicines. Try this tip from Caplin, which appeared in the Mail On Sunday last month: "The vast majority of people who seek my advice on looking and feeling better are badly over-caffeinated, and without fail, feel better when they eliminate it from their systems."

Oh, here we go again. Without coffee, alcohol and wheat, these dietary tyrants wouldn't know where to turn. If I were rich or daft enough to invite Caplin into my life, I know what she would advise: cut out the fresh coffee, bread, weekend wine, Friday night glass of malt whisky and the Sunday beer. And what sort of lifestyle would that leave? One without a lot of life left in it.

Carole Caplin is the most influential lifestyle guru of our time. She could also be another scandal in waiting for Downing Street, if she ever did spill the beans (beans being something you presumably are allowed to eat) about her time pandering to the Blairs' egos.

It's all very odd. Come the next election, greater concerns will arise. But I can't help feeling that all this foolish business with a lifestyle guru won't have helped Tony Blair's case.

Updated: 08:53 Thursday, September 18, 2003