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The woman who wants to be the next Republican First Lady pledged today to expand her humanitarian work if she makes it into the White House, taking inspiration from the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Speaking ahead of a political fundraiser in London tonight, Cindy McCain said that she felt "very honoured" to serve on the boad of the Halo Trust, the Anglo-American anti-landmine charity endorsed by Diana and which organised her controversial walk through an Angolan minefield in 1997, the year of her death.

Speaking to The Times, Mrs McCain said of Diana: "She was (a) great inspiration to me and to the British people as well. She was a remarkable person and had a loving heart.”

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One of the American pilots shot down yesterday was Lieutenant-Commander McCain

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Ms McCain's London fundraiser was expected to raise at least $500,000 for her husband, John McCain, who needs every penny he can get to match the superior financial firepower of his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

In an interview to be published in Times2 tomorrow, Mrs McCain spoke of the problems she faces reconciling her domestic life and charity commitments with being the wife of a presidential candidate. “I won’t lie to you and say that I always enjoy the campaigning, but when the days get a little long and I get a little frustrated, I remind myself that I have a ringside seat on American history,” she said.

And if she's on the right side of history and her husband wins November's election, she will use her position as First Lady to step up her humanitarian work. "I intend to make that the focus of what I do," she said.

Mrs McCain's stopover in London comes as she returns to the United States from a humanitarian visit to Vietnam. She recalled her first visit to Vietnam, back in 1988, when she experienced a moment of shoc when she realised that she was standing in the very room where her husband had been held by the Vietcong, after being shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi 21 years earlier.

“It was a little bit overwhelming,” she said. “That was quite a point in time for me.”

Ever mindful of the sensitivities of her hosts, she also drew a comparison between her husband and her late father, Jim Hensley, who served in the UK during the Second World War as a B-17 bombardier. Hensley was shot down three times and once had to be rescued from the Channel.

“He had a lot in common with my husband,” she said. “He became very successful but he believed to the day he died that his finest hour was serving alongside the British.”

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