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RICHARD KAY: MP defends £500k-a-year pay bonanza

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When former Tory grandee Douglas Hogg was revealed during the expenses scandal to have claimed £2,000 of taxpayers’ money for cleaning his moat, voters were horrified by their MP’s staggering self-indulgence.

What, I wonder, will the electorate in Sleaford and North Hykeham make of the news that Hogg’s successor, Stephen Phillips, has earned almost £1 million in less than two years as a barrister?

Phillips has been topping up his £65,738 backbench MP’s salary by charging clients around £600 per hour as a commercial lawyer. Since July 2011, he has clocked up more than 1,500 hours of non-parliamentary work and is now thought to be the best-paid politician in Britain.

When Douglas Hogg was revealed during the expenses scandal to have claimed £2,000 of taxpayers' money for cleaning his moat, voters were horrified by their MP's staggering self-indulgence

Although Gordon Brown has made more money giving speeches around the world over the past three years, the former Prime Minister donates his cash to charity.

The latest Register of MPs’ financial interests shows that Phillips, 43, worked for 478 hours on one case between December 2011 and March 2013, earning £239,125. After VAT, his bill rose to £286,950.

In total, Phillips has received £922,380.20 in barrister’s fees since July 2011. Throw in two years’ Commons salary and he has made more than £1 million in under 24 months.

The extraordinary sums are likely to reopen the debate about whether MPs should be allowed a second job. It may also raise questions about Phillips’s ability to represent his Lincolnshire constituents. He was elected in May 2010 with a majority of almost 20,000, giving him one of the safest Tory seats.

  More... Disgraced ex-MP Chris Huhne is released just 62 days into his eight-month jail term... on same day ex-wife Vicky Pryce walks free after serving QUARTER of her sentence From porridge to snout in the trough: Chris Huhne cashing in on green energy industry he funded as a minister when he is released from prison Migrant loophole 'lets in 20,000 a year': Rule allows EU nationals living here to bring their families into Britain without checks

Despite a solid attendance and voting record in the Commons, the volume of work he does means he is effectively holding down two full-time jobs.

The Oxford-educated father of three, whose wife, Fiona, is also a barrister, says: ‘My attendance and other indicators are among the highest among MPs, with my expenses among the lowest, and my remaining work outside Parliament is primarily when the House is not sitting and other MPs are on holiday.

‘I would also say that I think it useful to keep a foot in the real world outside politics, though I accept that mine is very well paid. The sums you mention are, of course, turnover, not profit, as I am sure you will make clear.’

 

Labour politician-turned-£295,000 BBC boss James Purnell, at the centre of a row over his membership of Stalybridge Labour Club, says he will update his Who’s Who? entry to reflect that he quit the club in 2010. This may take time. Those in the famous red book are contacted in the first quarter of each year to update entries for the following year’s edition. So Purnell is likely to have to wait until 2014 to disassociate himself from the club in the 2015 edition. Isn’t it odd that while he has updated some details since 2010, Purnell never removed this detail? Why would he claim to belong to a club of which he isn’t, according to him, a member?

  Upset for Emma Noble’s big day

Eighteen months after announcing they were to marry, former glamour model and TV hostess Emma Noble and  society caterer Conrad Baker have been forced to postpone their wedding — again.

Emma, 41, former daughter-in-law of ex-Prime Minister Sir John Major, tells me: ‘We were going to get married in June but sadly my father is very ill with cancer and can’t walk me up the aisle.

‘I can’t think about organising a wedding while Dad is so poorly. I’ve been helping my mother nurse him and it’s all very upsetting, so the wedding will have to wait.’

Eighteen months after announcing they were to marry, former glamour model and TV hostess Emma Noble and society caterer Conrad Baker have been forced to postpone their wedding

Emma has a 12-year-old son, Harrison, from her short-lived marriage to Sir John’s son James. After a whirlwind romance, they married in a blaze of publicity at the crypt in the House of Commons, and with the benefit of a £400,000 deal from a feel-good magazine.

After her divorce, Emma took up with Baker, ten years her junior and the son of a retired diplomat. The couple, who have a two-year-old son called Roman, now run a party planning firm.

They first said they would wed in September 2011, later changing it to last June.

‘I know it sounds funny to keep changing the dates but we can’t help it,’ Emma tells me at a party for designer Nina Naustdal. ‘But I am still praying my father will one day be able to walk me up the aisle.’

 

Amid the eulogies to film director Bryan Forbes, there has been no mention of the abiding sadness he endured over the plight of his first wife, Irish actress Constance Smith.

For despite Bryan’s 58 happy years married to Nanette Newman, he never lost sight of the tragic spiral Constance fell into after they split.

Smith, who co-presented the 1952 Oscars, ended her days a cleaner destroyed by alcohol and died in 2003. She and Forbes married in 1951 and were divorced four years later —  he married Newman the same year.

Constance last acted in a string of minor films made in Italy between 1955 and 1959. She returned to her native Limerick and was jailed for stabbing her lover. She tried several times to kill herself and in her last years was a destitute alcoholic.

Says a friend: ‘She never forgot Bryan and although they lost touch he never forgot her. But a sadder end is hard to imagine.’

  Doctor Who’s Lalla is sew busy

It is 30 years since Lalla Ward left the Tardis for the last time as Doctor Who’s sexy sidekick Romana. But Lalla, otherwise known as the Hon. Sarah Ward, says she is still getting work on the back of it. ‘I’ve just finished a new recording of Doctor Who in which I play ALL the characters,’ she says. ‘So for me, Doctor Who has never really gone away.’

It is 30 years since Lalla Ward left the Tardis for the last time as Doctor Who's sexy sidekick Romana

Lalla, 61, daughter of the 7th Viscount Bangor and who is married to biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, spends much time as a thread painting artist — producing pictures drawn with sewing machine needles. ‘I regard myself primarily as an artist now,’ Lalla tells me at the National Theatre, which has just held an exhibition of her work, Vanishing Act.

She adds: ‘I always wanted to be an artist. Richard and I share a love of nature so he influences me and I’ve illustrated some of his books. Unlike drama I’ve had no formal training, I just bought a second-hand sewing machine when I got into this particular style.’

Novelist Jeanette Winterson has been publicly celebrating the fourth anniversary of her relationship with psychoanalyst Susie Orbach — but alas it seems she hasn’t convinced the latter to marry her.

The lesbian author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit used her Twitter site to propose to Susie on Valentine’s Day, but it seems her romantic gesture hasn’t found a positive answer from her lover three months later.

Winterson tweets, hopefully: ‘Four years with Susie! How lucky am I? Yippee. Now I just  have to persuade her to marry me.’

PS Tory veteran Lord Tebbit takes a well-aimed dig at the current leadership following the drop in party members. Reflecting on damaging divisions over Europe, he observes: ‘Already it has contributed to the steep decline in Conservative Party grass roots membership, which I understand is now less than a third of that of the Girl Guides. At least that should mean we no longer need to hire halls the size of  The Winter Gardens at Blackpool or that one at Brighton. There is probably quite a nice pub with  a decent parish hall somewhere.’ Every cloud . . .



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