I'd Rather Have Wife Swapper Over Big Brother's Chantelle

Summary

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NORTH Devon to Stoke-on-Trent isn't a well trodden route. I'm fairly sure there isn't a bidding war to provide the bus service.

And yet John van de Laarschot, formerly in charge of Torridge District Council, has chosen to make the journey as new chief executive of Stoke-on-Trent City Council. Clearly he's had enough of the south-west county's magnificent coastline and is keen to cast his gaze across the incinerator at Sideway instead. There is also a chance that surfing may be introduced on Westport Lake. Mr van de Laarschot, worth 375 on a triple word score in Scrabble, is also a reality TV star having starred on an episode of Wife Swap. It sounds strange having a reality TV star in charge of your local authority, but if you live in Stokeon-Trent look it at this way, it could have been worse. You could have had Chantelle from Big Brother. Personally, I'd have said it wasn't a good idea to go on a reality TV show if you were holding a senior office. Basically, it's asking for trouble. That's why you never saw Betty Boothroyd on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. The imposter spouse on Wife Swap didn't get on famously well with Mr van de Laarschot and did something of a hatchet job on him in The Sun. "They are plastic people who live on their own in a bubble," she said of him and wife Tracey, although there was a suggestion that she'd got them mixed up with something she'd seen at Toys R Us.

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I'd Rather Have Wife Swapper Over Big Brother's Chantelle

One would imagine that Mr van de Laarschot has now had his fill of reality TV and is unlikely to be ...

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