UK News 11-12-2002 Cherie: I Am Not Superwoman who: Cherie Blair what: Hits back at critics with impassioned speech where: LONDON when: Last night snippet: "If this was spin, it was spin of another dimension," says The Times after Cherie Blair choked back tears last night "as she admitted to mistakes over the Bristol flats affair and declared that she was not Superwoman." Mrs Blair`s intervention, which The Guardian believes is "likely to become a classic of modern television politics", was the climax of a day "when the government finally got off the back foot to fight back" against what Downing Street had earlier dubbed `a deliberate campaign of character assassination` against her by the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. "My immediate instinct when faced with the questions from the Mail on Sunday 10 days ago, was to protect my family`s privacy and particularly my son in his first term at university living away from home," said Mrs Blair at a live televised conference that for the most part elicited sympathy from today`s press. "This instinct, which I think any mother would have, and my desire not to open myself up to any and every question which the press should choose to ask me is what led to the misunderstanding in the press office and I think that they know that I did not act in any way to mislead them." "The second mistake I made was to allow someone I barely knew, and indeed had not then met, to get involved in my family`s affairs." Mrs Blair`s statement was not just about herself "and her current imbroglio", reckons The Times` Ben MacIntyre: "Mrs Blair wanted to make a declaration about modern womanhood. `I am juggling a lot of balls, trying to be the Prime Minister`s consort at home and abroad . . . sometimes some of the balls get dropped,` she said. In the vast, packed atrium of the media headquarters at Millbank, one might have heard the drop of a pin, let alone a ball." Shadow deputy prime minister David Davis conceded that Mrs Blair "gave us a very good account about how she felt about it and why she did what she did," but insisted that the affair is not over yet: "She cannot answer the questions about the behaviour of the government - that can only be answered by someone who is free of the Number 10 system." [... more]

What The Papers Say is delivered to thousands of readers every morning by web, WAP and email. Sign up today!