CHERIE BLAIR must be wishing that her courtroom tussles were as straight forward.

She described her husband’s former director of communications Alastair Campbell as the “cuddly, friendly type” on a prime-time television interview and got away with it.

Faced with the soft sofas and gentle questioning of the hosts of Richard and Judy, the Prime Minister’s wife deployed all the skills of a consummate lawyer.

But her appearance was nonetheless her most revealing to date. She made the most effective attempt yet to end the speculation about her husband’s future, saying that there “never was a moment” when he had been going to resign.

And she insisted that Melvyn Bragg, who suggested this week that Mr Blair had considered quitting for family reasons, was “mortified” about the stir his remarks had created.

“We can’t always explain what goes on in men’s minds — I wish I could,” she said, before adding that Mr Bragg would not be cast aside for his apparent indiscretion.

“I am not the sort of person that goes off and takes a huff, frankly” she told Channel 4.

Talking about the flurry of speculation about her husband’s future, Mrs Blair provided the closest indication yet that he had never wobbled.

“As Tony himself said, there never was a moment when he was going to resign. I can assure you if he had done, I would have known. So I do not know where Melvyn got it from and to be honest I think he is mortified that he said it,” she said.

Asked why she thought Lord Bragg had made the comments, Mrs Blair replied: “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him.”

She added: “We can’t always explain what goes on in men’s minds - I wish I could.”

Mrs Blair, who will be 50 next Thursday, was appearing on the Channel 4 show to promote her book The Goldfish Bowl, which looks at the life of spouses in Downing Street.

In the book, which was co-written with Cate Haste, Lord Bragg’s wife, the pair interview the partners of former Prime Ministers.

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