- It is every homeowner's worst fear, that nightmare neighbours
will move in next door.
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- But very few can afford the dramatic action taken by
a British Labour Party minister Lord Sainsbury and his wife.
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- When the couple learned that pop superstar Madonna wanted
to buy the £3 million London townhouse adjoining their family home,
they bought it themselves.
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- Lady Sainsbury was so horrified by the prospect of photo-graphers
and fans camping outside her house in upmarket Holland Park, West London,
that she told her husband to snap up the property instead.
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- Lord and Lady Sainsbury, who have three grown-up daughters,
were alerted to Madonna's plans last year. The singer and her film director
husband Guy Ritchie were considering uprooting their family from their
current home in the West End to the three-storey home in Lansdowne Road,
one of Holland Park's most exclusive streets.
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- Since she met Ritchie eight years ago, Madonna has made
a concerted effort to become part of British society.
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- In 2001 the pair spent £9 million on Ashcombe House,
a six-bedroom Georgian manor and 1 000 acre estate on the Wiltshire-Dorset
border, once the home of former Royal photographer Sir Cecil Beaton, so
they could stage traditional partridge and pheasant shoots.
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- Secrecy
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- They also own a £5 million townhouse in Marylebone,
central London. The house was recently refurbished amid such secrecy that
even the wallpaper designer had to sign a confidentiality agreement.
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- But her aspirations to move into the refined circles
of Holland Park, where Sir Richard Branson, Elton John and supermodel Elle
Macpher-son have homes, were dashed by Lord Sainsbury's purchase.
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- Lord Sainsbury, the great-grandson of the supermarket
founders, boasts a £1.6 billion fortune, making him the richest man
in the British parliament. Insiders say the 63-year-old minister, whose
blind trust still owns around a third of the supermarket chain, earns £1
million every time Sains-bury shares rise by a penny.
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- He is the Labour Party's biggest backer, donating £11.5
million over the past seven years. In 1997, shortly after helping bankroll
Labour's General Election victory, he was awarded a life peerage, and his
gifts have prompted accusations he bought his post at the Department of
Trade and Industry.
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- His time as Science Minister has also been controversial,
and many MPs have voiced concern about his links to the genetically modified
food industry. Sources have revealed that he plans to stand down later
this year.
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- ©2004 The Daily News. All rights reserved.
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- http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=328668
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