Cherie: 'I will not quit as judge'
- 00:01:24
- ITN
Cherie: 'I will not quit as judge'
Cherie Blair has said she will not quit as a judge after being accused of bringing the legal profession into disrepute with her memoirs.Top barrister and former judge Gerald Butler QC branded her revelations as "inappropriate" and said Mrs Blair "should not continue to sit as a recorder".Mrs Blair, a high-flying QC, expressed "sadness" at the remarks but added defiantly: "I enjoy the law and intend to continue to practise.""I'm sad that he feels like that but I also think that today is the day the book is published so many comments about the book have been spoken only on the extracts."If anyone reads the book I don't think they would draw that conclusion from it."The wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair also rejected criticism for writing about the death of Dr David Kelly, saying it would have been "impossible" not to feature the Government scientist in her book.She is said to have received a £1 million advance for her autobiography, which goes into great detail about life behind the famous Number 10 door.It paints unflattering portraits of some top political figures such as Gordon Brown, who is described as "rattling the keys" over Mr Blair in his rush to take over as Prime Minister.But Mrs Blair insisted she merely wanted to tell her story. She said: "One of my motivations in writing the book is, for the last 13 years really, since Tony became leader of the Labour Party, many people have written about me, have spoken about me but I have not spoken for myself."For me it was a time to look back on the last 50 years."In her memoirs, Mrs Blair speaks of her husband's "shock" on learning of Dr Kelly's death and how the couple invited his widow to Chequers so they could say "how personally sorry they were about what happened".But Derek Vawdrey, brother of Dr Kelly's widow Janice, said Downing Street was responsible for his death and that Mrs Blair should be "ashamed of herself" for using his suicide to bolster her husband's image.Mrs Blair said: "I'm sorry he feels like that but it's very much a part of the story."We met the Kelly family later and I really don't want to say any more about it than I said in the book."She added: "David Kelly's death was a huge tragedy for the Kelly family first and foremost but ... to tell the story about being in Number 10 and not to mention David Kelly I think would be actually really impossible."
ITN | May 16, 2008
