'Turncoat Towers' fails to find buyer

With house prices shooting up month by month, here, perhaps, is proof there is a limit to what people are prepared to pay.

A sumptuous Grade I-listed property overlooking St James's Park is the home of Shaun Woodward MP, the multi-millionaire former Tory who defected to Labour in 1999.

But after six months on the market it has yet to find a buyer at its £6.75 million freehold price tag. Now, in a bid to hurry the sale, the MP for St Helens South on Merseyside has taken out a full page colour advert in the magazine Country Life.

The six-storey property boasts six bedrooms, a drawing room, breakfast room and dining room, as well an office, roof terrace and nursery, and is a handy 200 yards from Parliament. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson, a close friend of Mr Woodward, stayed there free for several months last year.

Neighbours are convinced its owner is currently asking rather too much for "Turncoat Towers", although agent FPD Savills says there has already been some "interest".

A shipping company director whose office is opposite the Woodwards said: "It is probably one of the best houses in the street, having views over the park. But I think it's probably overpriced by one or two million. We looked at a similar house nearby for £4.8 million.

"We've enjoyed having them as neighbours. But when they had Mandelson there it was a nightmare. There were plainclothes policemen everywhere. It was unnerving."

There is no mention in the advert of Mr Woodward, 43, and he refuses to disclose his reason for selling. Ever since he defected to Labour in disillusionment at the Conservative Party's drift to the right, he has discouraged talk about his vast wealth.

Shaking off the "champagne socialist" tag has not been easy. Mr Woodward and wife Camilla - an heir to the £3 billion Sainsbury's supermarket fortune - also own an £8 million Oxfordshire pile; a £3.2 million penthouse and £273,000 flat in Parliament View overlooking the Commons; and two £500,000 flats in London Bridge.

When he bought a £57,000 terraced house in his working-class constituency, he astonished neighbours by applying to carry out nearly £70,000 in improvements, including three en suite bathrooms. During the 2002 General Election, he caused further surprise by taking his butler campaigning.