'I don't feel sorry for Posh'

Max Clifford is wearing the smallest, tightest swimming trunks I have ever seen, trunks which could only be worse if they were a thong and in leopardprint rather than bright blue.

He is lying on a sunlounger on the terrace of his apartment in Marbella, his body glistening with suntan oil and looks like any of the other middle-aged (he's 61) Britons - mostly lawyers and bankers enjoying early retirement - who spend several months a year in this lush, gated development surrounded by golf courses.

His Speedos might be causing his daughter Louise severe embarrassment ("Oh Dad," she winces, "I can't believe you've got them on") but Clifford couldn't care less. This is the man embroiled in the story of the moment - David Beckham and his alleged affairs - and Clifford is clearly loving every minute of it.

He tells me so often that "the sleazy stuff is only 20 per cent of what I do" that I lose count. But who wants to talk about his run-ofthemill PR? It's the scandals that made him famous. He orchestrated the downfall of David Mellor and Jeffrey Archer ("I'm proud that I got the word 'sleaze' and the word ' Conservatives' linked together"), and his fingerprints are all over the most explosive stories of the past few years, from the fake sheikh trap Sophie Wessex blundered into to the story of the body found in Michael Barrymore's pool. But he believes the Becks scandal is "the biggest story of the decade".

When the story broke three weekends ago, many believed Clifford had choreographed the whole thing. He denies that he has been working on it for months with the News of the World, first with Beckham's former chauffeur, then persuading Rebecca Loos to act as a "honey trap".

He says he only got involved once the story hit the front page and Loos needed help, although she first called him in January. He says he met her for the first time last week.

"She was a friend of someone I knew and when she called in January, she introduced herself as 'Maria' and said she needed some advice.

She told me about Beckham and said she thought the story might be coming out. I advised her to keep her head down.

"Then, four weeks ago, she phoned again to say that journalists had been contacting her and trying to take pictures of her. I called the News of the World who told me they were nearly there with the story and I told Rebecca she had two choices: 'Do it yourself in your own words or wait and see what happens and then respond.'

"After the stories came out about her being bisexual and having an affair with Pat Cash - a complete fabrication, she's never even met him - she wanted to do her own story and tell the truth.

"I talked to Rebecca about various things, such as how her family and friends would react. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to work again as a PA. I explained that the money I could generate from this would mean she wouldn't have to work again."

So far, he says, Ms Loos has made £800,000 from her notoriety ( Clifford, taking his usual 20 per cent, has made £160,000). He negotiated a deal worth £350,000 for her exclusive interview with the News of the World and £150,000 for her interview with Sky One last week, the rest coming from other media deals.

She has been holed up at a villa an hour's drive away for the past week but watched her Sky interview on Thursday night at Clifford's apartment. "A bomb could have gone off and she wouldn't have noticed. She was transfixed."

Clifford is planning "to ease out of the picture", although if other big stories involving Ms Loos break - he says she has had sex with two other "major stars, one male and one female" - he is sure to be in the shadows.

In a bizarre twist, he has arranged for her to have dinner this week with his friend, the celebrity agent Cheryl Barrymore, ex-wife of Michael, who will deal with the increasing number of offers made to Loos for television presenting jobs.

She has been considering numerous advertising deals, including one from a lingerie company and, unfortunately for Victoria Beckham, she is not going to go away. Clifford says Ms Loos is thinking of buying a flat in London so she can spend half her time here, the other half with her family in Madrid.

She is enjoying her fame, he says. "I can see it in her eyes," he says. "I can tell she loves the money and the attention." He doesn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt about the state of the Beckhams' marriage and didn't deliberately set out to hurt Victoria (contrary to reports, he insists he does not "hate" her).

"David Beckham is wealthy and experienced enough to have made sure something like this never happened," he says. "He should have been aware that if he played around, eventually it would come back and bite him on the bum. But it hasn't done him any harm at all, not even to his sponsorship deals. If he was sponsored by the Church of England, maybe, but he's not. If anything, it will enhance his image.

"For Victoria, it's given her what she craves most: saturation coverage. The only reason she's famous is because she's Mrs Beckham - her career disappeared years ago. She's addicted to fame and right now she's getting it by the bucketload. I wouldn't say she's enjoying it but given the choice between no publicity and this, she would choose this.

"I do get a buzz when it's a story like this because I don't think there are any real losers. It's taken people being blown up off the front pages for a few days. Do I sleep at night? Yes. My problem is waking up."

Max Clifford's Marbella apartment, which he has had for nearly four years, is all neutral marble floors and tasteful decor, and doesn't give much away about him other than he likes things to be tidy and has a lot of money.

In the several hours I spend with Clifford, he is never anything but charming and quite fatherly (he calls me "poppet" and "love" but not in a belittling way. He does the same to his daughter). But you don't get to where he is without being tough.

Yet whatever people think of Clifford in his business life (David Mellor called him the "sleazeball's sleazeball", Edwina Currie called him "a little turd"), his private persona is quite different. His employees adore him and his neighbours are clearly fond of him. At one point six of them descend on the terrace for tea and he laughs and jokes with them. I can't tell if it's been arranged for my benefit.

But it is his relationship with his only child, Louise, 31, who works for his company, that provides a rarelyseen softer side to Clifford. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was six and spent 10 years in a wheelchair.

In the past 25 years she has had numerous operations - knee and hip replacements, a metal rod inserted in her back and, most recently, a kidney transplant - and Clifford is proud that he has never put his work before her needs.

"Every operation, I'd put a gown on and I'd be the last face she saw when she went to sleep and make sure I'd be the first face she saw when she woke up," he says.

"My biggest tribute to Louise is that she's a positive, happy person despite everything she's been through and that's something I'm incredibly proud of."

Clifford's wife, Liz, died of lung cancer at the age of 57 last April. They met at a dance in Wimbledon and had been together for 40 years.

"For the first and only time in my life, when Liz was diagnosed in July 2002, I lost all interest in the job. I just concentrated on wrapping myself around her. We never talked about her dying, instead we were talking about coming here to Spain just a couple of days before she died.

"I had 40 years of love and laughter with the same person; most people don't get five. I've always thought I could solve the whole world's problems - it was hard to accept I couldn't solve Liz's cancer."

Can he imagine having another relationship? "Liz was the love of my life, undoubtedly. Nobody would ever be able to take her place but yes, I can see myself having another relationship. Liz would want me to, she'd want me to be happy."

Clifford and his daughter live in a large house in Surrey. She is still recovering from the kidney transplant, and although she doesn't need a wheelchair, just getting out of a seat is difficult for her.

He is always there to help lift her out of a chair, help her down steps or lower her into the car. We go for breakfast at a restaurant and sit outside but it's a bit chilly. When he wraps a black pashmina around Louise's shoulders and tenderly lifts her shoulder-length blonde hair from under it, he's completely at odds with the man who, minutes before, had just called Rebecca Loos to ask her if Beckham had assaulted her in an alleyway. A Sunday newspaper had rung to ask if the rumour was true - it's not.

I ask if Louise's illness helps keep his feet on the ground but Clifford insists he's never needed that. The youngest of four, he grew up in Wimbledon in small house with a tin bath in the garden and an outside loo.

After getting fired from a department store (he couldn't do the "bowing and scraping"), he went to work for EMI, promoting the Beatles. In 1970, the year after he got married, he set up his own company. He's never been star-struck and has what can only be described as contempt for most celebrities. "A lot of them are empty, totally insecure, jealous people. The best way to deal with celebrities is to make sure they need you more than you need them. I've kept many more stories out of the papers than I've put in. I know where all the bodies are buried."

He gives money to charity and persuades celebrities whose secrets he's hiding to visit children's hospices as part of the deal. Would he do all this even if he could not put himself in a positive light? Yes, probably. But Clifford can't fail to try to spin any situation to his own advantage. Eventually, he gets up to go for a swim, shuffling off in his tiny blue trunks, his publicity machine as well-oiled as his sun-baked body.