Just like Cherie? Cameron's wife 'using his position to promote her business in the U.S.'

In a wide-ranging interview with Harper's Bazaar, Mrs Cameron repeatedly plugged Smythson, the upmarket London stationers where she is creative director.

Inviting the magazine into her new Notting Hill home, the mother-of-three discussed life with the Tory leader - dubbed a "high-profile politico and Prime Minister-hopeful" - the pressure of juggling work and family, cooking and her dress sense.

In the space of four pages, she name-checked six products sold by Smythson, the 120-year-old company based in Bond Street.

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They included a £950 handbag, a £150 pink calfskin Bible and a limitededition diary. She even managed to plug her mother's furniture and homeware company. The profile was timed to coincide with the opening of Smythson's first store in Los Angeles.

The feature is headlined: "A fashionable life: The creative director of Smythson and wife of the UK's Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, shows off her London home."

In the main photo, Mrs Cameron, 36, stands on the doorstep of her £2million Edwardian home, holding son Elwen, one, dressed in a Red Indian headdress, and clutching the hand of daughter Nancy, three, who is wearing a fairy costume. The couple's disabled elder son Ivan, five, is not pictured.

Critics yesterday drew comparisons between her and the barrister wife of Tony Blair, Cherie, who was dogged by accusations of using her husband's name to promote speaking tours abroad.

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Close friends of Mrs Cameron insisted it is her job to promote Smythson and said she had gone out of her way to avoid encouraging claims she was abusing her position.

Last night a friend of the Camerons said: "To suggest she is using her husband's name to profit is complete nonsense. Her job is to be the face of Smythson, and it has been her job for the past 11 years.

"She used to do lots and lots of interviews, even before David became an MP, but when he became leader of the Opposition she took the decision to do nothing, precisely because she knew she would get criticism.

"This interview was done purely for the U.S. market. There is no question of her trying to cash in on David's name and to compare her to Cherie Blair is laughable."

In the Harper's Bazaar interview, Mrs Cameron enthused about Smythson notebooks which are stamped with titles such as "Me, Me, Me" or "Therapy Notes".

"I think that one will be especially good for L.A.," she tells the magazine, adding that her husband is a Smythson customer.

Mrs Cameron also endorse tableware by Oka, a company run by her mother Lady Annabel Astor, in her list of favourite products.

And she revealed that she covets the eccentric style of chart-topping American singer Gwen Stefani.

"Not that I'd ever dress like her, but in a different life, I've always wanted to dye my hair blonde," she said.

Critics accused her of using her husband's position to boost sales for Smythson ahead of the opening of its Rodeo Drive store.

Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, said: "Come back, Cherie. All is forgiven. This is far, far more serious than anything-she did. It is just seedy. It exemplifies just how out of touch the Camerons are. It is highly inappropriate for anyone seeking to become prime minister of this country."

One Tory backbencher, who declined to be named, added last night: "David Cameron has said that the Conservative Party is the "heir to Blair" and obviously he is now putting the theory into practice.

"His wife is doing exactly what Cherie Blair used to do.

"It turns the voters off enormously to see the leader's wife flogging themselves - Cherie was widely reviled by the public. It is pathetic. When Cameron seems to get into a spot of bother, the first thing he does is wheel his wife out."

Since Mrs Cameron joined Smythson in 1996, the company has cashed in on the soaring demand for luxury goods.

In 2005 the firm was bought by a consortium of City investors, who intend to take the brand global.