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With a gorgeous country house nestling in four acres of Hampshire countryside, Alan Titchmarsh is likely to be squarely in Labour’s mansion tax firing line – and he’s not happy about it.

Not, you understand, because he could have to shell out an extra £3,000 a year for his country estate. But because he doesn’t think it will work.

“It’s a jealousy tax really,” he says. “It’s not going to raise a lot of money. I’m a pragmatist and it won’t really raise that much. We do need to raise money – we all need to contribute.”

From the back streets of a small town in Yorkshire to wealthy Mr Middle England, Alan is the classic working- class lad who pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

And the ex-gardener believes he more than pays his way, pointing out that his ITV chat show, which ended last month, employed more than 100 people, ploughing money into the economy.

And he defends his friend Myleene Klass, 36, who was heavily criticised after saying £2million wouldn’t buy a garage in London in a TV debate with Labour’s Ed Miliband about his proposed tax.

(Image: daily mirror grab)

Alan, who was Myleene’s co-host on the 2010 series of ITV’s Popstar to Operastar, says the attacks were an example of “tall poppy syndrome”.

“Good for Myleene for saying it!” he adds. “Why has she got on? Because she works like stink. I know Myleene – she’s a mate. Why shouldn’t she have an opinion?

“We have to realise that some people in this world have a lot of money. I don’t hate billionaires – they employ a lot of people. It’s the way life is.

"Everybody wants to get on, everybody wants to encourage you to get on.

“But then when you’ve got on, why are you vilified? You lose your right to an opinion.

“It’s sad that we have this opinion in this country. I started work as an apprentice on three pounds 17 and sixpence a week in 1964 and I’ve been very lucky, to be given opportunities. I’ve also worked extremely hard.

“I wouldn’t like to think that I now don’t have a voice and people don’t respect me because I’ve done well and I’ve got a few bob.”

Alan has always been a no-nonsense character. But since he quit the daytime ITV hit last month he seems even more outspoken. Take immigration.

“We have a problem in this country in that we’re just not big enough to take everybody who wants to come here. There are a lot of people in Eastern Europe who want to move here because we have a good ­reputation for looking after people.”

(Image: www.carlfox.photoshelter.com)

Alan insists he doesn’t want the UK to be xenophobic or stop the flow of certain migrant workers.

But he adds: “I do think we have a problem in that if people come over here they are instantly allowed benefits with rather too much ease.

“I think, ‘If I moved to a foreign country, what would I do?’ I’d keep my own identity but I would feel some kind of obligation to fit in, to learn the language.”

Things are beginning to sound a bit UKIP, and while Alan won’t discuss his voting preferences, he admits: “I have some sympathy with the clarion wake-up call they’re trying to give the country.”

He praises the party’s leader Nigel Farage: “He’s saying what a lot of people, what the electorate, seems to think a lot of politicians are frightened of saying. He’s a good orator. He’s a populist. He’s a man people warm to.”

The son of a plumber and a mill worker, born and raised in Ilkley, Alan started out as a teenage gardener. Then in 1979 he landed the gardening spot on BBC show Nationwide and went on to host Pebble Mill at One, Gardeners’ World and Ground Force with Charlie Dimmock.

He’s met and interviewed members of the royal family and in 2000 won an MBE for services to horticulture and broadcasting.

(Image: BBC)

He also does radio, journalism and endorsements, not to mention his (often racy) novels.

He won’t say exactly how lucrative this career has been but he does have sympathy for stars in hot water over tax-avoidance schemes, though he makes it clear he’s too cautious to take that route.

“A lot of people have been pilloried rather unfairly,” he says.

“A lot were ­probably advised by their accountants. We all want to keep as much as we earn. That’s natural. You’ve earned it – you want to try and hang on to it.

“You understand the importance of paying your whack because this country has to function – the health service, education, law and order. But it’s galling that the government allows loopholes.”

Alan has been married for 39 years and is a grandad.

His family has given him his most joyful moments – and the most terrifying.

In 1980 wife Alison and daughter Polly, then just five months, suffered a near-fatal accident at home.

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Alan says: “The worst moment of my life was finding my wife at the bottom of the stairs with our baby in her arms. She had smashed her elbow and Polly had fractured her skull. Alison had caught her toe at the top of the stairs.

“The baby was wailing and I couldn’t get a word out of my wife, she was in such agony. They were rushed to hospital and I sat there all night, wondering if I was going to leave a widower without a child.”

Thankfully both survived and the couple’s second daughter, Camilla, was born in 1981.

By the 1990s Alan was a household name –and an unexpected heartthrob.

Often described as Middle England’s Mr Sex, he’s featured in polls of the Top 100 sexiest men and his Madame Tussaud’s waxwork is plastered with lipstick from fans.

“I once had a bra sent to me but I think it was for Charlie Dimmock,” he jokes. “I get fan mail and ladies come up to give me a kiss – all harmless stuff.

(Image: ITV)

“It’s probably because I’m unthreatening. It’s rather bemusing and ­flattering really. I had five or six ladies who turned up to every Alan Titchmarsh Show that I did in eight years – that’s 752 shows.”

He has now called time on the show, but has new TV projects in the pipeline.

He says: “If I had to stop tomorrow, I’m not going to whinge – I’ve had a good time. But leaving was entirely my decision. I’d done 15 series and I just thought, ‘I’ll move on before I’m asked to leave.’

“ITV have got lots of other things they’re asking me to do.”

Other new things include playing the narrator in the new West End ­production of The Wind in the Willows.

“It doesn’t mean sitting at the side of the stage reading from a book,” he says.

“I do a little bit of dancing, a little bit of singing, and I’m involved with the action. I was in an operatic society 40 years ago so I’m almost going back to my roots.

“But I’m more scared now. I’m out of my comfort zone.”