Can no one turn off Cherie, the cash-in machine?

[emad]

June 05, 2005
Sunday Times
Jasper Gerrard

Sarah Brown should count the silver when she finally becomes chatelaine of 10 Downing Street. For Cherie Blair, alas, almost lives up to those cruel jokes against Scousers ・namely, if it ain稚 bolted down, it ain稚 going to stay.

When the Clintons left the White House they were accused of pinching stuff and trashing the joint. It turned out they were largely innocent. But it says much about how low the Blairs ・once symbols of decency ・have fallen in our esteem that we could even imagine them doing much the same.

For the odour of sleaze that drove the Tories from power wafts to Washington, following Cherie the Chav. She is to trouser up to ｣30,000 for talking at a ticket-only bash about life with Tone and the kids ・just as Tone tries to persuade President Bush to confront Third World poverty.

As this newspaper has reported, exasperated figures in the upper echelons of Downing Street have given up trying to defend her, even before this latest debacle.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1641325,00.html

THERE would be hell to pay for if Pickles suddenly started lecturing the Brits about life with Dumbo in the White House at £30,000 a pop - just to pay off their mortgage on Crawford......

[Cha]

1. Doesn't tony have enough in

his "retirement fund" from the bushreich?

[emad]

2. US law bars Pickles from such stunts:

Cherie sits in plush hotel waiting for a far more profitable collection
Report by Andy McSmith, Andrew Buncombe, Geoffrey Lean and Severin Carrell
05 June 2005


When Tony Blair finally returns to the British embassy in Washington on Tuesday after a joint press conference with George Bush, exhausted by an overnight flight and a demanding round of meetings, he will find his wife waiting for him, refreshed by a comfortable night in a plush hotel.

The "First Lady of Downing Street" - as she is billed - will address an audience of up to 2,500 on Monday night at the Kennedy Center in a speech organised by the Center for Association Leadership, a Washington think tank that provides training courses for not-for-profit organisations. Her fee is believed to be in the £20,000 -£30,000 range.

The coincidence that both Blairs were in the American capital on the same day has produced a storm of criticism, including a call from the Conservatives for an investigation by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Under US law, the First Lady is barred from making any profit from her role as wife of the President, and proceeds from such an engagement would have had to be donated to charity. But there are no equivalent rules in the UK on governing how far a Prime Minister's spouse can use her other half's public position for her own private profit.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=644276