 Cherie is offering an inside account of the "First Lady of Downing Street" |
The Tories are demanding a tightening of government rules to prevent Cherie Blair earning "tens of thousands of pounds exploiting" her husband's job. She is giving an inside account of life in Downing Street in a paid lecture in Washington on Monday, while Mr Blair holds talks with George W Bush.
But the Tories want rules for ministers extended to ban commercial activities directly linked to the PM's job.
A Downing Street spokesman said her speech was a "private engagement".
Chris Grayling MP said Mrs Blair was exploiting a "grey area" in the rules.
She had strayed over the line of "what people would feel the rules should say", the shadow leader of the House of Commons told BBC Radio 4's PM programme.
"The rules for ministers explicitly say they cannot make money from commercial activities in relation to their job.
"What we have here is a grey area because we have, not the [prime] minister himself, but his wife giving lectures to paying audiences about their life at No 10."
Mr Grayling has written to Cabinet Office Minister John Hutton asking him to look at how the rules could be tightened.
"What is wrong to me is the Blair family making tens of thousands of pounds out of effectively exploiting Mr Blair's job when the ministerial code says they are not allowed to do that," he added.
On Friday, Mr Grayling asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to examine whether there should be rules on the activities of the spouse of a serving prime minister.
The committee looks at broad policy issues rather than individual cases. Its remit covers a broad range of areas, making any immediate investigation unlikely.
All tickets for the lecture - billed as the inside account of the "First Lady of Downing Street" - at the 2,500-seater Kennedy Centre are believed to have been sold at between �33 ($60) and �52 ($95) each.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "Mrs Blair's engagement has been arranged for some time.
"It is a private engagement and she is travelling independently of the prime minister's party.
"If she and the prime minister are in Washington at the same time it is a coincidence."
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What is wrong to me is the Blair family making tens of thousands of pounds out of effectively exploiting Mr Blair's job when the ministerial code says they are not allowed to do that
