I AM pleased that Mary Ann Sieghart has written a “position statement” for Cherie Blair (T2, September 6, 2004). She is an admirable role model for young career women. I am so impressed that she manages to rise above the vicious nonsense circulated about her, and I really hope that she and her family are not damaged by the sideswipes.

It is interesting that we can have no admiration for a family coping with such extraordinary pressures at such a time of change. While it is healthy to maintain a critical commentary on how people in power are conducting themselves, I think we have become mean and unrealistic in our expectations about how their personal lives should be led.

It must be galling to have missed out on property wealth, and those of us who have always had to work can readily understand the need to plan ahead to catch up. I wish I knew Cherie Blair and that she was in my circle.

Liz Perry, Sheffield

Fool to cry

CHERIE BLAIR gets all she deserves in the way of criticism, and to say that she is astonishingly arrogant is an understatement. As to her “judgment”, all we need to remember is the fact that she once had to be trotted out into the full glare of the media in tears as a means of damage limitation. Mary Ann Sieghart mentions Norma Major, and says that she was never savaged by the media. Well, she did not behave in the manner Mrs Blair behaves.

Martin Briggs, motorocker@winterhaven.fsnet.co.uk

MARY ANN SIEGHART’S article defending Cherie Blair is long overdue. I say three cheers for Cherie, who has all the qualities most people lack wrapped up in one package.

Sue Micklethwait, Andover, Hampshire

TO DESCRIBE Cherie Blair as being “financially insecure” is almost obscene. While The Times was being very rude to Mrs Putin about her choice of clothes it was reported that Cherie Blair was paying Carol Caplin £60,000 per year to advise her on her wardrobe. Do you realise the number of people in this country for whom a total income of £60,000 is a dream? And why does the nanny have to go on holiday with them? Can’t the Blairs look after their own children when they are on holiday?

Pamela G. Buckingham, Epsom, Surrey

Clever errors