WILLIAM Hague is a likeable chap. Everyone is agreed on that. Retaining his warm West Riding accent, he comes over as genuinely friendly and unaffected. Lively mind, of course. Sharp wit. Brilliant speaker. The Tories probably reckon they dumped him prematurely.

But since that departure in 2001 Mr Hague's many attributes have been seized upon by others. While he continues to earn £57,485 a year as Richmond's MP, he now collects more than £1m through external activities. Top of the outside-earnings league, he raked in £395,000 last year from speeches and £190,000 from a newspaper column. Media appearances netted around £30,000.

More came from writing a book and Mr Hague's one-man theatre show. And, though earnings from two directorships were not disclosed, political consultancies, with firms that include Mercedes Benz and top accountants KPMG, pulled in about £135,000.

No doubt, Mr Hague has not neglected his duties at Westminster or in his constituency. But the fact that he had time to earn approaching 20 times his MP's salary is the strongest evidence that MPs do not have enough to do.

With many others also earning big bucks outside the House, the message is that the number of MPs should be drastically reduced. Mr Hague could probably represent the whole of North Yorkshire and still keep half his outside commitments. Representing the entire Broad Acres might just about prove the full-time job that an MP's role should be.

Some outside work could still be tolerated. Newspaper columns, showbiz appearances, speeches - okay. But all business links should be taboo. Outside working by MPs has reached the point where it is an abuse of the system comparable to the one-time presence in Parliament of MPs who represented "rotten boroughs", which had no electors. Already alarmingly high, public cynicism and apathy will increase unless drastic reform is carried out. Needless to say the affable, engaging Mr Hague, speechmaker sans pareil, had no comment to make on his mammoth outside earnings.

MY thanks to the readers who kindly got in touch, or gleefully pounced, to point out that the comedian I hailed as "definitely one of the greatest" of all time was Robb Wilton, not Robb Wilson. In fact, I named him correctly, but "Wilton" became Wilson through telephone dictation.

A mistake I did make was to say that the funeral of ITMA star Tommy Handley was in his home town of Liverpool. It took place in St Paul's Cathedral and it was the streets of the capital that were lined with damp-eyed mourners as Handley's cortege passed by.

Second only to Churchill in lifting wartime spirits, Handley is rightly accorded a profile in the Dictionary of National Biography, the official record of people of distinction. Yet now he doesn't figure in a Top Ten of best comedians that includes Roy Chubby Brown and Peter Kay (who he?) Pish.

SPORT now...

Soccer: Newcastle United in turmoil following the sacking of Sir Bobby Robson. Was it not time for another return by Kevin Keegan?

Cricket: Increasingly, centurions on television raise their bats with the back facing outwards. Their chief aim now is not to acknowledge the crowd but give maximum display to their sponsor's name and logo. In such small ways is a great game debased and corrupted.