Election '97: Hamiltons peek outside as media caravan moves on

"Excuse me if I looked fierce when I opened the door," said Christine Hamilton, "It's just that at the moment I tend to expect the worst."

This is not surprising. Yesterday marked the Hamiltons' first day in weeks without a media camp at the end of their drive; a camp which has ensured virtual house arrest since last Sunday for Neil Hamilton, the Tory MP at the centre of persisting sleaze allegations.

"If you want to include the fact that they were camped outside our flat in London from the day the news broke that the Downey report wasn't coming out, we're just ending our third week," Mrs Hamilton said.

She and her husband were still "lying low" as she put it yesterday, but despite The Independent's appearance, Mrs Hamilton, one of the most robust of Tory wives, was in an amenable mood.

Over the past week, cameramen and reporters have braved "the Hamilton run", up the long, daffodil-lined drive that leads to their home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, to receive epithets bestowed upon them by Mrs Hamilton, the mildest of which included "reptile" and "snakes".

She informed waiting reporters that if Neil resigned, "which he won't", or even if she had an affair with the milkman - "which I won't" - they would be the last to know, as she would call the Press Association instead.

The only newspaper to speak to the elusive MP in the first week of the Conservative election campaign has been the local Knutsford Guardian. Its reporter, Paul Broster, said Mr Hamilton had "never locked himself away to us" because the newspaper "always tried to be fair" but it had never doorstepped him, Mr Hamilton's home being "out of our area".

It is not just the Hamiltons who have been under siege. The first words of his agent, Peter McDowell, on being contacted were: "Don't tell me. You've heard a rumour from the Guardian that Mr Hamilton will stand down this weekend." He wasn't, Mr McDowell was keen to add.

Despite Mr Hamilton's non- appearance in public, according to Mr McDowell, the MP for Tatton has spent his time usefully on the telephone talking to constituents before the selection meeting next Tuesday. He had also held a series of evening meetings with local constituents in their homes after reporters left, "where he's been telling people the facts of all this". Details of who Mr Hamilton had been meeting, he said, were private.

"But he has been about these past few evenings. I don't think the watchdogs at the end of the drive have been particularly efficient," he added happily.

Mr Hamilton's campaign, Mr McDowell said, has not been affected by the "siege". He would be out and about again after the dissolution of Parliament on 8 April and his campaign would be conducted "as before". "In local areas, he will be going out canvassing during the day, meeting people. In the evenings he'll be visiting the odd pub."

Liberal Democrats in Tatton last night formally adopted their candidate, university physicist Roger Barlow, 45, but said they were keeping their options open to see if an independent "anti-sleaze" candidate would come forward to challenge Mr Hamilton.