THAT'S WHY MUM HAS GONE TO CLIFFORDS

You'll have spotted Max Clifford has been hanging about on the edges of the Kerry Katona story - he's bringing his press manipulation skills to try and rebalance her career after, ooh, a sticky patch. It's fascinating to watch him at work - for example, using his UK Press Gazette column to praise her peripheral involvement in an all-women taxi service and, more curiously, getting a puff-piece in the Mirror. Now, what with the toe-curling Iceland adverts, the drug allegations, the fisticuffs in a Warrington nightclub, he's got some uphill work to roll this out, so the angle they seem to have decided on is how Kerry has been badly let down by her friends:

"I'm far better off without them. They are all just money grabbing people and I'm a human being with feelings. I can't believe they would go to these lengths just to make money."

The doting mum was furious at nanny Debbie Price who claimed Molly, four, and two-year-old Lilly Sue, were being neglected.

So... that's nanny Debbie Price off the list, then.

Former Atomic Kitten Kerry was also devastated when long-time friend Joanne Goodier claimed she was a cocaine addict.

She blasted: "They are complete traitors, they have no feelings whatsoever. I let these people into my life, I was naive and a mug but I've never been happier because now they are out of my life and I've seen their true colours."

So, bye bye nanny, bye bye Joanne. Still, anyone can be fooled a couple of times, can't they?

Kerry has had a massive row with mum Sue and they are no longer on speaking terms.

Mum as well?

She has also fallen out with Louise Oortwyn...

Next year, at least, she won't need to buy quite so many sausage rolls for the Christmas bash chez Katona

... and Michelle Hunter.

It does start to make the impartial observer wonder if, with so many people falling out with Kerry, there might be more to it than their failings. To lose one mate isn't unusual, but when you start discarding friends and family like Smash Hits was losing readers there has to be a small voice somewhere saying "is it me?"

... and recently split from boyfriend Dave Cunningham.

Boyfriend too, eh? So far, Max, this isn't looking too good, is it?

Not that Kerry is feeling sorry for herself, despite her traumatic experiences. "I often think, why me?," she admits. "But I'm really still dead lucky. It's not a disaster. I'm not dead. I'm alive and I've two little beautiful girls at home.

"Don't get me wrong - it does get me down and I'm still on anti-depressants. But I don't feel sorry for myself. I have my off days, but who doesn't?"

Well, very few people who have managed to piss off all their friends, we guess.

She says: "I'm single now and I just want to clarify I wasn't dumped - I did the dumping. I'm quite content just being with my girls."

Apart, presumably, from when she's thinking why me.

It's not the strongest piece of turn-around that Max has done, but it does make a change to see a story about Katona that doesn't end with the words "according to a Cheshire police spokesperson."

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