Kirstie Allsopp’s new look as Tory adviser

The Hon Kirstie Allsopp is showing me the downstairs lavatory in her third home. “I made this wallpaper myself,” she explains, pointing out a couple of smudges on the beautiful block print. “And I blew these glasses myself,” she adds, wandering into her new kitchen. Her sideboards are reclaimed from science labs. “And that rug came from a skip,” she says. “I made the bowls at a local pottery. This poker is mine, I forged it at a blacksmith. I made the lampshade as well.”

In her bedroom she points out the salvaged bath and the bed. “Feel these sheets. They are from Matalan, 220-thread Egyptian cotton, half the price of anywhere else and they are the most beautiful sheets to sleep on.”

This is why Allsopp, the co-presenter of the aspirational property programme Location, Location, Location and an adviser to Cameron’s Tories on all things housing, is so angry. Her once derelict cottage in North Devon has been furnished for less than £10,000. “How could MPs have spent so much on their second houses? They have just been throwing taxpayers’ money away,” she says, referring to the details released recently of MPs’ expenses. “I don’t begrudge them some help. But they’re so profligate: Jacqui Smith’s barbecue and patio set was outrageous at £200. It’s a luxury not a necessity.” Her boyfriend got theirs on eBay for £75. She laughs. “I don’t think he spends his evenings watching porn, he’s addicted to salvage.com.”

Allsopp can’t understand why MPs wouldn’t love hunting for bargains as they drive round their constituency. “They seem to have been sucked into this benefits culture, so they just think, ‘What can I get?’. Not, ‘How will this help my community too?’, or that they might enjoy making their own toothbrush holder from an old mug. They should scavenge their constituencies. Why are they charging for scatter cushions when they can make cushions themselves? Cherie Blair got pilloried for buying shoes on eBay but bargain hunting should be encouraged.”

When I point out gently that MPs might be busy, she snorts derisively: as a working mother of two she is an effective multitasker, and she can’t understand why MPs can’t do their own DIY too.

As we sit in her kitchen she is scrubbing her local organic carrots, reading a book to her eldest and griddling crumpets on the Aga for her two stepsons. On the drive down from London to her home, she managed to fit in an advertisement on composting for Devon council.

She had just had her youngest son when she had the idea for a programme (Kirstie’s HomeMade Home, to be broadcast on Channel 4 on April 16) on making improvements to her own house. “I was determined to take six months off with my new baby but like many people I was freaked out about getting work and having any money. Everyone started blaming me for being one of the people who had helped the housing market get out of control and I thought that I had to do something to help people with their houses in the downturn. So this programme will show you how to decorate on a budget. I am now working flat out. And what I am saying is that MPs need to be working hard too, not just grabbing what they can get.”

She knows how tough it is to run a small British company in the downturn. “I worked with a blacksmith who couldn’t afford to take on an apprentice because he wasn’t even paying himself the minimum wage. I’ve seen the bureaucracy that these companies face and MPs should see it too.”

The father of her two children, Ben Andersen, a property developer, arrives and turns on Lily Allen on the radio. “F*** You,” she sings. “I think that is how many people feel about the Government,” he says. “Everyone is struggling apart from them.”

Allsopp wants the “John Lewis list” of products that MPs can claim for to be replaced by cheaper items and believes that claims should be scrutinised independently. “There should be an expenses commissioner, someone who looks at contentious expenses and says, ‘No sorry, you are pushing your luck’. I wouldn’t mind doing it. I wouldn’t have patio heaters, you should eat inside if it is cold.”

She is happy to write the list. “I am a pram expert and a potato peeler expert, I know exactly how much it should all cost. They need to find someone as expenses commissioner who understands about family life.” The commissioner should also use his or her discretion, Allsopp says. “An MP just starting out with a young family who is struggling maybe really does need help with a bath plug. Some of them have just got too used to putting on [expenses] the shower curtain and the bath mat, taking whatever they can for free, forgetting that it is there to help the genuinely needy MPs. MPs should think before they claim, ‘Can I justify taking this money off my constituents?’

“I am sympathetic to MPs in terms of public condemnation because I know how hard it is to be constantly scrutinised and the ones I know do work incredibly hard. But this has shaken me. I am not a cynical person but some have gone too far.”

Allsopp says that she has also realised why MPs never listened to her when she kept trying to tell them that stamp duty and home information packs (Hips) were making it impossible for many to move. “MPs would say to me, £300 is nothing for a Hip, stamp duty is fine’. But that is because they have so much help with buying and moving homes. They saw the property market as a cash cow. But most people weren’t moving to make money, they were moving because their family was growing, or they were getting divorced, or retiring or changing jobs.

“If their house cost them £300,000 they would be paying £20,000 after tax on stamp duty and fees and that is before removal men, new paint and washing machines. That is one of the reasons we got into 95 per cent mortgages.

“But the MPs didn’t understand or care because they wouldn’t be able to tell you how much stamp duty they paid for their second house because they claimed it back.”

She doesn’t want to take everything away, though. “We certainly don’t want to get to a position where the only people who can become MPs are the rich, but they also need to be aware of the real world,” she says.

“I am proud of the programme, it’s like Blue Peter for grown ups, telling you how to make your own homes.”

CV

Name Kirstie Mary Allsopp

Born August 31, 1973

Family The daughter of Lord Hindlip, the former chairman of Christie’s. She lives with Ben Andersen in Notting Hill and Devon, and has two sons, Bay and Oscar, and two stepsons, Orion and Hal

Education St Clotilde’s School, Gloucestershire, and Bedales School, Hampshire, then taught English in India.

Career Worked for Country Living, and Food & Home magazines, worked for the interior designer Nicky Haslam, founded Kirmir Property Search and in 1996 founded Garrington Homefinders. She is co-presenter of the Channel 4 programme Location, Location, Location and an adviser to the Conservative Party on housing

Interests Shoes and bargains: once voted 99th-sexiest woman in the world