Cherie Blair

I was so intent as a young lawyer on beating the men at their own game that I didn't take any real maternity leave with my three younger children. It is only looking back that I realise I wasn't beating the system but reinforcing it. ”

I think, when I was a young lawyer starting out, I was so determined to prove that I was as good as the men and that I could be given the same opportunities as the men, and it wouldn't make any difference at all that I was a woman. But actually, looking back on it now, I did do things that I wouldn't recommend to other women at all. ”

Our experience shows - and survey after survey reveals - institutions are run better, communities are healthier when women are involved in solving the challenges of our society. Equal representation does not just lead to good democracy: it is democracy. ”

I really am not going to get involved in a discussion about the legal position of the Iraq war. I am not the person to do that because I am not sufficiently impartial as a lawyer about this, because it's a matter that is of interest to the person that I am closest to in the world. ”

Since I'm not a fashion model, there's a limit to how nice I can make myself. I don't regard myself as an ugly person, but I don't think of myself as someone who would choose to be a model. I'm somebody who might be, I'd like to think, a role model for people who want to become lawyers. ”

If I want to make political decisions, I should stand for election. If I want to do something in the legal field, that's different; that is my - they are my qualifications, but you know, the politicians are the ones who stand up there and are answerable to the people. ”

Women tend to judge other women harshly. We should be kinder to each other, accept that we're all different and can make different choices. Not go for some kind of stereotypical idea that we're perfect. Frankly, I'm not perfect. ”

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to think: have I really come this far? Because it is quite different, where I find myself today, from where I started off, in the streets of Waterloo, in the suburbs of Liverpool - that's for sure. ”

I think it is what you do with your wealth that is important. I don't believe in accumulating money for money's sake. It's one of the reasons I want to do more about helping women. ”

Like everyone, I am formed by my background, and mine was - well, we didn't have a lot of money. I didn't live in a cardboard box, but I did live in a place where, at the end of the week, the money was gone. ”