Derek Hatton, the militant capitalist

Derek Hatton, 60, is best remembered as a radical socialist when he was deputy leader of Liverpool City Council in the 1980s, and Neil Kinnock expelled him from the Labour party for being a member of Militant.
Now he runs a property company selling villas and apartments in Cyprus

Derek Hatton

I was a post-war baby and I grew up in a council house with two bedrooms. I was an only child and I learned later one of the reasons was that mum didn't work and my dad, who was a fireman, was concerned about how much it would cost to have another baby.

The post-war period was a time of austerity and my mum was particularly careful. She used to go berserk if ever I left food on my plate. I always say that kind of an upbringing will affect you in one of two ways: either you become frugal yourself or you react and go the other way. My attitude has always been that you don't know how long you've got in this world, so spend what you have while it's there.

I now have the freedom to do things my parents could never do. I run my own business and, although there are some strains and stresses associated with that, if I need something I always find a way of getting the money. My parents had a fixed wage and had to stay within it, but I haven't had to live like that for the last 25 years.

Does talking about money embarrass you?

Not at all and I don't mind telling people how much I earn. It is public knowledge that my son and I sold our website business for a lot of money and I'm now involved in property in Cyprus, but it's hard to put an exact figure on my annual income because it goes up and down. It's certainly in the comfortable six figure bracket though.

Would you say you're good with money or irresponsible with it?

I don't think I'm irresponsible, but I'm definitely not good at saving. If I look at my bank accounts and see money in there I tend to think it's not doing much and I want to get it out and invest it in a business or in property. I want it earning money for me and not other people.

Isn't money earning for you when it's in a high interest account?

Not enough – if I get 6 per cent interest I have to pay 40 per cent tax on it through my tax return, so in reality it's only 3.6 per cent. At that rate I'm just about equal with inflation at, say, 3.5 per cent, so in future my pound will be worth a pound. What's the point of that?

Have you ever invested in shares?

Yes, I owned shares in a variety of companies in the 1980s. I invested a few thousand here and there, but I found it frustrating because unless you were monitoring it constantly you couldn't make the decision to sell at the right time. All of a sudden I'd look and see my investment going down. I remember I put £1,000 into Millwall football club in the 1980s because I heard from an influential friend that Chris Evans and Danny Baker were thinking of buying it and I passed the tip on to a couple of friends who've never forgiven me.

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