2002, a space oddity: No 10 adviser inspired Bowie

Nita Clarke, the Downing Street adviser handling Tony Blair's relations with trade unions, is a former girlfriend of rock star David Bowie, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Ms Clarke's handclapping forms part of the backing for Bowie's hit single "Space Oddity", which was released in July 1969, shortly before the Apollo 9 moon landing.

Asked about her relations with Bowie (pictured right), Ms Clarke said: "I don't remember. That was the Sixties. You know what they say about the Sixties."

Her name, as "Nita Bowes", appears in memoirs of people who knew Bowie when he was David Jones.

"Space Oddity" was seen as a bleak comment on the hype surrounding the moon landing. A more modern interpretation might be to see the song as a paradigm for Mr Blair's relations with the trade union movement.

The song features a lonely hero who sets off into the unknown, but loses contact with those who helped launch him. At the end, a chorus of ground controllers (union barons?) can be heard crying "Can you hear me, Major Tom?" He cannot.