AS if rehearsing for the job of first gentleman, Bill Clinton has persuaded Laura Bush, the first lady, to give the opening address at his world anti-poverty summit in New York this week. It is a coup for Clinton that could boost his claim to succeed her as White House consort.

It is no less advantageous for the first lady to present herself as a champion of good causes and “Friend of Bill” who is above the fray of electoral politics. Despite an early vow to her husband never to make a political speech, she is touring Republican heartlands and engaging in international diplomacy in the hope of softening President George W Bush’s polarising image.

“You know, politics ends up really being a family business whether they want it to be or not,” she said ruefully. While her husband attends the United Nations general assembly, she will be hobnobbing with President Perez Musharraf of Pakistan and Queen Rania of Jordan at the Clinton good-works fest.

The two famous political spouses will give the first speeches of the second Clinton global initiative, a follow-up to last year’s conference, which helped to raise $2.5 billion in pledges to combat HIV infection in Africa. Like all the participants, she is expected to bring money to the table. Her pet project will be the provision of water-cleansing equipment to sub-Saharan Africa.

According to Jay Carson, Clinton’s spokesman, the first lady’s presence is “a testament to her commitment to good works around the world and the non-partisan nature of this event”.

Polls confirm that Clinton and Bush are their spouses’ best assets. The former president basks in astonishingly high approval ratings of 70% as his wife contemplates a run for president, while one recent poll awarded the first lady 69%.

The Clinton camp is all too aware of the need to soften his wife Hillary’s image as a joyless, left-wing feminist, despite her energetic promotion of cross-party initiatives with Republicans as senator for New York.

Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, believes Clinton’s association with Laura Bush will help to humanise Hillary, but it carries some risks. “It may also remind people of the differences between a warm, much-liked first lady and the ice-queen.”

The Clintons have become family friends with the Bushes through the tsunami fundraising-and-golfing partnership of George Bush Sr and Clinton. The new partnership with Laura Bush “stems from their co-operation”, according to Ron Kessler, her biographer.

“Laura is pretty uncomplicated,” he added. “She wants to push the causes she believes in. She’s not in the mould of Stepford wife. She is very tough behind her warm exterior.”

Clinton would have relished the role of UN secretary general but has carved out the next best thing: what he calls the unofficial job of “secretary general of NGOs” (non-governmental organisations). The global initiative is a 10-year anti-poverty project which, if all goes to plan in 2008, will keep him busy while Hillary runs the country.

Tony Blair attended the global initiative last year but will not do so this time. His likely successor, Gordon Brown, however, hopes to turn up. Clinton praised Brown last week for being a “great” chancellor who would make a “good prime minister”.

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