THEY ARE TALKING BLOODY NONSENSE'
Max Clifford tells Mark Palmer that he
is not to blame for the tabloid frenzy surrounding the Hamiltons
'IT beats working for a living,' says the Mullah of Muck as his mobile and office telephones compete for attention five floors above New Bond Street. It's a steamy afternoon and Max Clifford is at the centre of another steamy story. He seems to be working incredibly hard for someone who has beaten working for a living.
'Yes, that's right. She may give a press conference tomorrow morning,' he tells one of the tabloids. 'I am waiting to get clearance from the solicitor,' he tells a broadsheet. 'Call me later. It's being decid ed as we speak. of course I'm serious.'
After putting down the various receivers, Clifford spends most of the next hour telling me that the Hamilton story has nothing to do with him, that the last thing he wants to do is get involved in such an unseemly police investigation, that he has no axe to grind whatsoever with Neil and Christine Hamilton, and that he hasn't the faintest idea who is telling the truth over the alleged rape of a young mother from the north of England.
'So, why not keep your nose out of it?' I ask. Fight in the gutter and you're bound to end up smelly. Walk away. Don't stoop so low. Enjoy the sunshine. 'That's not in my nature,' he says, looking at the walls of his office which are covered in framed front pages of national newspapers, each carrying stories brokered by the master of dosh-for-dirt, the king of kiss-and-tell, the man who prospered more than any other from what is known as 'Tory sleaze'.
'Mellor Made Love in Chelsea Strip'; 'Chief of Defence in Sex and Security Scandal': 'Dirty Des [Lynamp'; `Di's Secret Trysts with Carling'; 'Archer Quits'; 'Sophie: the tapes': 'Cherie is Pregnant'; `Barrymore Arrest over Body in Pool'. They are all there. And alongside them is one from the London Evening Standard that reads 'Max Clifford in TV Fracas', while above Clifford's computer are disparaging stories written about him in Private Eye and his own letters to the magazine in response.
Clifford, 58, can dish it out and he can take it, too. He loves nothing better than a scrap. He tells me that as a child he was good at football and water polo but was continually being cautioned for fighting. 'And you know the reason I used to get sent off?' he says. 'Because I was always trying to defend the person who was being picked on by others. Often it would have made more sense to stay away, but I couldn't. It wouldn't have been me. That's the way it's been all my life.'
Which brings us back to the Hamiltons and how exactly he has nothing to do with the story, despite advising the woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted, and despite trying to set up a press conference during which the woman will tell the world her side of the story (in the end the lawyer didn't allow this to happen). 'It was the Hamiltons who brought me into the equation by repeatedly mentioning my name and by spending the last few days attacking this young woman. Who was going to stand up in her corner? That's why I've been getting her mum to talk to the media. I'm not being paid for any of this and I probably never will be paid for any of this — although I think you will find the Hamiltons are being paid very handsomely by the Mail on Sunday.'
But, by his own admission, Clifford was involved well before the Hamiltons were arrested. He met the woman and her uncle on 2 May, when they came to London to tell him about an alleged sex story involving the Hamiltons — not the one now on the police files. Clifford asked the woman if she had proof. She said she would provide the proof. Four days later, the woman rang Clifford with a new story: she had been raped. 'I told her to go to the police because this was an entirely different matter, and she said she had already been to the police and that they were investigating. And that was the sum total of my involvement. Since then, it has been the Hamiltons who have dragged me into it.'
So, I try again. If the story has nothing to do with him and there's no money in it and he has no vendetta against the Hamiltons and he doesn't know who is telling the truth, why bother? 'Don't believe everything you read about Max Clifford,' he says. 'There is more to things in life than money, and we do a lot for people without being paid. I could say to everyone that I have nothing to say about this, but I'm not made like that. You either hide or you stand up. The Hamiltons have been talking bloody nonsense about me and about Mohamed [Al-Fayed] being behind this. But perhaps I should expect that. I have only ever seen them as light relief. They are perfect for panto. But if you start in on me, I am going to respond, and I wasn't prepared to see this woman torn apart. What I've done is help her, given her some advice.'
Clifford has been dispensing advice for nearly 30 years. Before that — and after leaving school at 15 — he worked as a pop columnist on the Merton & Morden News while moonlighting as a DJ in a local pub. He then moved into public relations and worked for EMI, whose clients at the time included the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. 'I never ever pitch for business and I don't seek stories. The irony is that I am like an old-fashioned investigative journalist. When I look at the Scoop of the Year awards, they have all been my stories in the last seven or eight years. All the reporter has to do is say, "Yes, Max, thank you very much."
'I go by instinct when it comes to believing people or not believing them. I hate bullies and people who are arrogant and pompous and look down on others. Mrs Hamilton has that sneering look about her, a contempt for ordinary people.'
'A lot of people have contempt for you, Max,' I chip in. 'You are seen more as a peddler of sleaze rather than a champion of the underdog.'
'I've got a lot of enemies but most of the people I have upset I am happy about. I don't have problems with adulterers, but it's the double standards that bother me. And although I'm a natural socialist I wouldn't hesitate in exposing members of the Labour government. I could have marked Mandelson's card before his downfall but I didn't. He used to ring up when Labour was in opposition and tell me I was doing a good job, but as soon as they got into power I never heard another word. What I do isn't a perfect science and you can only judge it as you see it, but Max Clifford is a very fortunate man. Max Clifford has a wonderful life.'
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