Cherie Blair: 'I'm not sorry for any of book'

CHERIE Blair was as frank, forthcoming and unrepentant in person as she is in print last night when she visited Scotland to promote her controversial autobiography.

She used the occasion in Edinburgh to launch yet another attack on the media, insisted she had been right to continue to work as a barrister while she was the prime minister's wife, and defended writing about the death of Dr David Kelly in her book.

She spoke candidly about prejudices she faced trying to carve out her career, revealed she was more politically inclined than her husband when they were both lawyers, and told of her determination to take on cases despite their political sensitivity.

Mrs Blair told the audience at the Royal College of Physicians that Britain risked an entire generation of young people shunning jobs that had a public role because of fears over the level of scrutiny they would come under.

The book includes criticisms of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who she said was "rattling the keys" of No 10 while her husband was still in office, and details of how her son Leo was only conceived because she was too embarrassed to take contraception with her to Balmoral.

She has also come under fire from the family of Dr Kelly, the government expert at the centre of the Iraq war dossier row, for writing about his suicide. But she said it would have been wrong to omit his death from the book because of the impact it had on the Blairs and the distress it caused her husband.

Mrs Blair said it was "bad for the country" that high-profile figures were demonised in the media and that women in particular were regularly berated for their clothes and appearance.

But she admitted she had been wrong to famously snipe "We won't miss you!" at photographers after leaving Downing Street for the last time.

"I would speak to some of the photographers and would know them quite well. I know I should have bitten my tongue, but it just came out. I shouldn't have done it."

Mrs Blair said her husband had read the book before its publication and thought he had "quite enjoyed it".

But she added: "I'm sure he was probably squirming at some points, particularly over the more touchy-feely stuff, but I'm not apologising for any of it."

The £5-a-head event, hosted by bookseller Waterstone's, was noticeably far from sold out.

Robert McNeil: Bosom buddy to the rescue as soundbites go unheard

IN AN ornate hall, surrounded by portraits of the great and good, an eager-looking man in a grey goatee beard knelt in front of Cherie Blair and, with his big, manly hands, fiddled in the vicinity of her cleavage.

High above, just under the ceiling in the Great Hall of the Royal Society of Physicians, Greek statuettes in flimsy robes looked down at the strange scene.

"Well, I always said I had a big bottom," said Cherie. "That just proves it, doesn't it?"

The 100-strong audience was not yet clear that it did. But the former prime minister's wife is a barrister and knows a thing or two about evidence. The gist of the case was this: the mob in the cheap seats couldn't hear what she was saying.

So, the goatee man had gone down to sort out her clip-on microphone. I think she was sitting on it. Mind you, with the acoustics, I'm not sure if she said "bosom" or "bottom". I'm not commenting on either, though history recalls Mrs Blair is touchy about her bahookie.

Ah, poor Cherie. You wouldn't want to be sensitive with the pictorial drubbing she's had in the press. Photies show her with poached egg eyes agog as she gurns like a scarecrow with a coat-hanger in its gob. In reality, she's a handsome burd, and down to earth despite all her dosh.

Last night, she was in Edinburgh to talk at a Waterstone's event about her memoir, Speaking For Myself (Speaking To Myself might have been more accurate during parts of the evening), for which loopy publishers shelled out £1.6 million.

For this, they got juicy details about her snogging Tony on the 74 bus to Primrose Hill; the shocking lack of contraceptives at Balmoral; and him proposing after watching her clean the bathroom floor. But stunned readers also got insights into the poltroon Broon, Prescott the buffoon, and the libationary predilections of Lord Irvine of Lairg.

The words "poltroon" and "buffoon" are mine, chosen for their cunning rhyme. Cherie would never be so harsh. Last night, she said of politicians: "The way we criticise them sometimes is totally unkind." She might have become one herself, but felt that none of her days in convent school had given her the edge that Tony had from his grooming at Fettes, the people's school.

Then there was the fact that, controversially, she was a woman. She spoke about entering the man's world of the bar (legally not alcoholically speaking) and of how her feminity distinguished her from Tony, as exemplified in her writing: "I think some of the touchy-feely things he would never mention himself. He would probably squirm about that."

A squirming boy asked how emotional it had been leaving Number 10. Answer: very. But: "There's nothing wrong with emotion. Remember that, young man. Real men can cry." They can, but they tend just to get on with things.

If the man in the goatee had stood there greetin', instead of fixing the mic, we wouldn't have heard a word Cherie had said, including "bottom". Or was it "bosom"?