IT CANNOT be easy being the wife of the Prime Minister. Every sentence Cherie Blair utters is analysed and has the potential to cause an international incident, as her 'gaffe' over the hopelessness of the Palestinians showed, and every piece of clothing she wears is analysed and has the potential to cause a major fashion embarrassment.

She has to combine her own high-powered job with being the mother of three teenage children and one two-year-old, while somehow finding the time to be loyally at her husband's side, either while opening a new hospital in Durham City or attending the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.

She is regularly assailed by the media and political opponents, often for being no more than a bright woman who dares to have her own opinions. One national newspaper columnist has cruelly nicknamed her the "wicked witch".

Nearly all of this, though, comes with the territory of being wife of the Prime Minister. Cherie Blair, understandably and often rightly, fights to ensure that that territory doesn't expand so that her entire family's privacy is eroded.

Practically every other family in Britain expects, and looks forward to, a summer fortnight where they can escape the pressures of daily life and just be together.

But not the Blairs. If they arrange to spend a few days in this country they are accused of cynicism; if they jet off to foreign climes they are accused of turning their backs on the struggling British tourism industry.

Cumbria in the torrential rain is probably not the most idyllic spot in the world, but whereas the rest of us can return to our offices and moan about the wonders of the British weather, Cherie Blair has to smile for the cameras and say how much she is enjoying her pub lunch.

And then comes this. To allay fears that the Blairs' delay in going on holiday signalled an attack on Iraq, Downing Street felt obliged to release last night's news. Cherie must have an extraordinary goldfishbowl existence when something as personal, private and traumatic as a miscarriage is interpreted as a sign that something as global, public and traumatic as a war is about to begin.

There can be no one in the country who does not wish Cherie a speedy recovery. Although the Blairs do lead the most public of lives, they should be allowed to come to terms with what has happened in private - and no one should begrudge them if they feel they need a little more time away from the public eye to achieve that.