Twice bitten, still not shy

PIERS Merchant is putting his head back into the lion's mouth. Last time, he was chewed up and spat out. And then the lions returned for a second bite.

He candidly admits that, seven years on, neither he nor his wife Helen have fully recovered from their mauling by the tabloid press.

"The truthful answer is that one never entirely overcomes it," he says. "I imagine it is like any traumatic experience, like being caught in a fire or a terrible road accident - it will always haunt you.

"I can be walking along a street and a tourist will take a flash picture and it will still make me jump because I was subjected to having pictures taken when least expected for some weeks. It does leave a scar."

Seven years ago, in the dying days of John Major's government, Mr Merchant was Conservative MP for Beckenham in Kent. Mr Major's big idea was to go 'back to basics', to the honest-to-goodness values of yesteryear. But it turned into a traditional British pantomime: every time the shouts caused Mr Major to look behind him, he discovered yet another MP in a compromising position with cash-stuffed envelopes or with a woman to whom they weren't married.

Mr Merchant had the misfortune to be discovered on a park bench with Anna Cox, a blonde 17-year-old ex-Soho nightclub hostess.

"I was originally set up," says the man who is putting his head back in the political lion's mouth as the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) candidate for the North-East in June's European elections.

"The story was invented and the evidence was then carefully assembled. There was some truth in it in that there were photographs of me in a park with a girl, but the problem was that the girl was persuaded to go there and the photographers were ready lined up in a ditch to take pictures they'd planned in advance.

"I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes, I shouldn't have got into that position, but it's the sort of game that's played when the tabloids are hunting to kill."

Then he laughs uproariously, his body shaking so much that he reveals the full glory of his patriotic socks. "And of course," he splutters with amusement, "they missed the biggest story of all, which was John Major and Edwina Currie - that's the funniest thing."

Mr Merchant survived the initial set-up, once escaping from his house through back garden hedges while the photographers were camped out the front, and was re-elected.

But then he was caught with Ms Cox when he should have been at the Conservative Party conference, and the game was afoot again.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," he says. "Every twist and turn of this case was extraordinary and there are still angles that I can't explain. I still don't know who was actually responsible for starting it."

Even as both a journalist - he was ten years on the Newcastle Journal - and a politician - he was MP for Newcastle Central from 1983-87 before Beckenham took him on in 1992 - nothing prepared him for "the sheer ferociousness of the tabloids".

"My daughter was 13 and she became very nervous and we very worried about her," he says, "although she did get over it.

'MY son, who's much younger, thought it was great fun and kept trying to shoot members of the journalistic profession with a toy gun!

"I really sympathise with people like Posh and Becks, and especially the Royal family, who are permanently in the public eye. To have this attention for four weeks is bearable because you know it will go away, but to have it all the time means you can't have any privacy."

The second sensation caused his resignation. "End of the Piers show", chortled one tabloid - but there may now be a second season should Mr Merchant be successful on June 10.

"I'd had enough of being so intensely in the limelight and I thought life had to be worth more," he says. "I had done ten years in Parliament and it was time to bring it to a close. I've made good that promise for seven years, which isn't bad, but if I'm going to stand up for what I believe, which is why I joined Ukip, I've got to do whatever is required."

He switched to Ukip in January, having gradually fallen out of love with a Conservative Party that he had joined 38 years earlier when at Durham University.

Sitting in the County Hotel in Durham, he recalls that his criminal law lecturer was also the president of the local Conservative Association, called Leo Blair. "He was great fun," says Piers of Tony's dad. "A very dramatic lecturer who'd jump on the desks and wave his hands about, a real showman".

And when the County's tannoy announces the routine testing of the fire alarm, he shifts again on the sofa, again revealing his Union Flag socks. He recalls being a local reporter in the mid-1970s and "running down here and the whole roof was on fire, big flames leaping out of the top, a big story".

Mr Merchant's break from the Conservatives was because he believes there are only two logical positions on Europe: either fully committed, constitution and all, or outside.

Under Michael Howard's leadership - "John Major Mark II", he says dismissively - the Conservatives have returned to the wishy-washy middle ground, neither in nor out.

"That's neither viable nor electable," he says. "You have to question whether the Conservative Party is viable any longer. It has been around a very long time and may have reached its sell by date. As an alternative government, it has become effectively unelectable -mostly because of its inability to take a position on one of the most significant issues of our time: Europe."

He continues in a tone far more considered than the ranting more usually associated with convinced Eurosceptics: "Joining the EU has turned out to be a mistake. At the time, there were some persuasive arguments in favour, about free trade and access to major markets.

"But it turned out to be something different. It turned out to be a gradualist European federation. The main people in it want a European superstate, and the main argument is whether that comes sooner or later, and how you go about it.

'THERE is a perfectly viable argument in favour of that, but it is not one that I accept, and I don't think the majority of people in this country accept it."

He talks of a friendly withdrawal and a warm, co-operative relationship with our Continental cousins from outside - rather like the ones non-EU members Norway and Switzerland have.

"I'm not anti-European at all, but I just say I want to see us preserve our traditions, our system of government and the rule of law as it has developed here, which is different to on the continent.

"The diversity of Europe is one of its great strengths. To see the deadhand of bureaucracy trying to make everything the same is counterproductive to any country in Europe. It is trying to create a level playing field where actually hills are much prettier and much better."

With the three main parties standing alongside Mr Merchant, as well as independents Neil Herron and Yvonne Ridley, there could be more candidates than voters if turn-out on June 10 is as low as usual.

Yet Mr Merchant's encounter with the ferocious tabloid lions has given him an advantage. "It won't do me any harm electorally," he says, "because one of the most important things is for one's name and what one stands for to be known.

"It might not have been the best sort of publicity, but it wasn't the worst either - I was never accused of doing anything illegal. And I would have thought generally that everybody is mature enough to have put what happened in 1997 in perspective."