Sarah Brown will make her first televised speech next week as she and Carla Sarkozy host a lunch for 150 of Britain’s highest-flying women. Annie Lennox, Sabrina Guinness and Davina McCall are among those invited to Lancaster House next Thursday.

One notable absentee is Cherie Blair, however. Despite the fact that the former Prime Minister’s wife was a guest at a dinner for the same charity in Davos this year, it seems that Mrs Blair will not be present.

Mrs Brown, notoriously reluctant to take the public stage, has been persuaded to speak in support of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safer Motherhood, which campaigns to reduce maternal mortality.

The lunch is taking place at the same time as Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy meet at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium for a summit on the second day of the French President’s state visit to Britain. Others to be invited include Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, Emma Freud, the broadcaster, Karren Brady, the managing director of Birmingham football club, and Lady Antonia Fraser, the writer and historian.

While Thursday’s event is undoubtedly high-powered, it will struggle to match the event at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland for glamour. The waiter at that dinner was Bono, the rock star.

It can, at least, boast the presence of the French First Lady. The Italian former model and singer again proved her mettle this week in a French newspaper with a spirited attack on journalistic standards. Mrs Brown’s foray into the media is in support of the charity of which she is a patron. She is expected to call for a global plan of action to prevent the 600,000 deaths in pregnancy or childbirth each year.

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