'I was an animal in the bedroom', says Tony Blair

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has revealed in his book that he was an animal in the bedroom.

When John Smith died on May 12, 1994, triggering the Labour leadership battle with Gordon Brown, it was clearly an emotional time for Blair and his wife.

"That night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me; made me feel that what I was about to do was right... On that night of the 12th May, 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly," The Sun quoted him as writing in his memoirs.

"I devoured it to give me strength, I was an animal following my instinct, knowing I would need every of emotional power and resilience to cope with what lay ahead. I was exhilarated, afraid and determined in roughly equal quantities," he added.

Blair revealed another bizarre obsession - with toilets.

The former PM writes that he likes to have "time and comfort in the loo".

Wife Cherie revealed Tony proposed after she cleaned a toilet on holiday in Tuscany in 1979.

"I was cleaning the bathroom. I''d cleaned the toilet and he announced, while I was on my knees, that we should get married. It was terribly romantic," she said.

Blair writes candidly about illicit affairs of the politicians, showing unusual insight for a man with a spotless reputation on that front.

"Politicians live with pressure. They have to be immensely controlled to get anywhere... And your free-bird instincts want to spring you from that prison of self-control. Then there is that moment of encounter, so exciting, so naughty, so lacking in self-control," he wrote.