Bunhill: Out of office

AS EVERY schoolboy knows, MPs are not allowed to resign, and can only get away by taking an 'office of profit under the Crown'. Hence the appointment of Bryan Gould as 'Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead'.

His new job is not as well- known as that of 'Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds, Stoke, Desborough and Burnham,' better known as the Chiltern Hundreds. The Northstead job, the other 'office' used to help MPs get out, sounds much less desirable.

According to HM Treasury the Manor consists of 'fields and farms at Scalby in Northern Yorkshire'. Already, by 1600, the manor was deemed 'unfit for habitation, and Sir Richard Cholmely-Sharp lived there until it fell down'.

Apparently, you hang on to the job until the next MP wants to get out. So Bryan Gould takes over from Sir Leon Brittan, who left in 1988 to graze in Eurofields far more verdant than those of Scalby.