Cliffhangers ; Cliff Richard, the World's Bestselling Singer, Used to Live a Quiet Life As a Christian in Surrey. But Barbados, the Blairs and a Live- in Priest Have Changed All That; Now He's a Big Spender, a Mover and a Shaker. What On Earth Is Going On, Asks Charlotte Eagar

Summary

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A few weeks ago, an item appeared in 'Page Six', the notorious gossip column of the New York Post. A pop star, a film star and a tycoon and his wife had eaten an amazingly expensive lunch at Nello's, one of New York's smartest restaurants, on Madison Avenue.

The bill came to $9,500, with $500 of it going on truffles with Kobe beef (the most expensive type of Japanese cow), $350 on risotto (there must have been more truffles), and $3,500 on a bottle of wine. They kindly left a $1,400 tip. What was strange was not that Lord Ashcroft of Belize, the self-made magnate, worth Pounds 754 million according to the New Statesmen Bling Bling List earlier this year, should pay that much; nor was it particularly odd that Olivia Newton-John was there, although it's hard to imagine someone that perennially thin and glamorous helping to eat $9,500 worth of food at one sitting, ever in her life. It was that the fourth person at the table, along with Lady Ashcroft, was Sir Cliff Richard, the 65- year-old Peter Pan of British pop.

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Cliffhangers ; Cliff Richard, the World's Bestselling Singer, Used to Live a Quiet Life As a Christian in Surrey. But Barbados, the Blairs and a Live- in Priest Have Changed All That; Now He's a Big Spender, a Mover and a Shaker. What On Earth Is Going On, Asks Charlotte Eagar

You don't associate Sir Cliff with movers and shakers such as Michael Ashcroft, a former treasurer of the Tory party. Ashcroft's the kind of man who foots the bill that makes the world go round.

There was a huge row involving Ashcroft's offshore donations to the Conservative party when he was plain Mr Ashcroft (resident of Belize) in 1999. Nor do you associate Sir Cliff with hugely expensive New York restaurants. Unlike his co-pop stars splurging on drugs and models, Sir Cliff, a devout Christian, never married (he always said he wasn't gay) and, now worth Pounds 40 million according to The Sunday Times rich list, tithed one-tenth of his income to the church, donating to such evangelical charities as Tearfund which helps the poor in Africa, hung out with fundamentalist Christians and lived in Weybridge.

It is perhaps this clean-living image, as much as his music, that has led radio stations such as Ra...

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