Hague defends outside interests

Mr Hague dismissed reports that he led a revolt of shadow cabinet members against a demand from leader David Cameron for them to give up their outside interests, insisting that no such request had been made.

But he said he had given up some external work since returning to the Conservative front benches and would "run down" his non-political activities as the General Election gets nearer.

Mr Hague has long been one of the House of Commons' highest-earning MPs, in demand for speaking engagements bringing in £10,000 or more a time. The latest Register of MPs' Interests lists paid employment worth at least £230,000, including two directorships, advice to three companies and a string of speeches.

But he told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "I take what you might regard as an old-fashioned view but I think is still the correct view, that actually you can gain in your effectiveness as a politician from a wide acquaintance with the world and from a degree of independence that having some outside interests gives.

"That is my personal view, and I think it has made me a better politician having these interests than I was before."

Mr Hague, who has written books on Prime Minister William Pitt and anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce while serving as MP for Richmond, dismissed as "rubbish" accusations that he and other shadow cabinet ministers were less effective in their work for the party because they do not devote themselves to it 100% of the time.

"I have written books on history, on Pitt and Wilberforce. I think it is a net gain to politics for some of us to have interests of that kind and I think it has been a net gain to British politics over a very long period for politicians to have some of these sorts of interests."

He dismissed claims that Mr Cameron was facing a revolt from shadow cabinet members who do not want to give up outside interests as "complete nonsense".

"There has been no such revolt because there has been no such proposal," said Mr Hague. "I have never had any such discussion with him, because he knows that I work more than full-time on politics and so do my colleagues in the shadow cabinet."