I never thought that I would want Sir Edward Heath back, but it would be more relaxing to have a Prime Minister who didn't have a wife or children. First there was the 50,000 pounds scholarship for Euan Blair to go to Yale. Now it is Cherie's turn.

Her dress sense, her taste for Belgravia squares and her enjoyment of crystals are up to her. But it is what she does in the name of the country and the Labour Party that is so irritating.

It is not just the hairdressing bills. Signing a copy of the Hutton report, especially if it was for a Labour Party fundraiser, was in amazingly bad taste.

Mrs Blair and Tony Blair's former chief spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, attended a fund-raising auction being held by the pensions minister James Purnell.

Their copy of the report raised 400 pounds, but the auctioneer, the MP Chris Bryant, promised that it would raise more if resold on eBay. But the Hutton report isn't a cricket bat or a bottle of whisky.

If Mrs Blair had wanted to, she could have given away something of her own. Instead, she donated a report into the suicide of a government scientist, Dr David Kelly, who had been hounded by her husband for leaking the truth and had decided to take his life.

His widow, Janice Kelly, said he had become: "Distracted, dejected, desperate. He had a broken heart."

She and her three daughters should not have to read that the Labour Party has profited from his death.

# posted by Curly : 10:26 pm