I Got News for You in 1992, on which he was unafraid to ridicule his own party and it was revealed that he was Ken Livingstone's "favourite Tory", which Angus Deayton then compared to being "Ian Paisley's favourite Catholic". Hayes was frequently described as a "political buffoon", because of his willingness to subject himself to ridicule on various television and radio appearances. This included being fastened in the stocks and pelted with custard pies, and being whipped while dressed in fetish clothing. When the heavy metal group Iron Maiden were having trouble getting permission to play in Beirut, Hayes threw his weight behind them (one member was a constituent). "I have advised [the Foreign Office] the group is not a bad influence," he said. "In fact they are very good: I have all their albums." After Parliament Following his career in Parliament, he wrote for the magazine Punch. In May 2010, Hayes started a political blog for the website "Think Politics", which also hosts blogs by former Liberal Democrat MP for Falmouth Camborne, Julia Goldsworthy, current Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, Andrew Gwynne, and Conservative candidate for Swansea West, René Kinzett. His blog has now moved to Total Politics. Hayes also regularly reviews the newspapers on Stephen Nolan's weekend late night show on Fridays at midnight on BBC Radio 5 Live along with Mohammed Shafiq, a media commentator on British-Muslim issues. Legal career Hayes was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1977. Hayes has practised as lead defence counsel in high-profile cases, including R v McGing and R v Tishane Bernard. McGing was a soldier in Basra accused of drowning a teenager whilst on patrol. He was acquitted. Tishane Bernard was accused of a gangland execution, and was also acquitted. He was instrumental in setting up Ten 17 radio with Tony Saxby and Russ Lewell in 1991. He acted as lawyer to John Hemming in his 2005 legal bid to challenge postal votes at the 2005 general election and has also defended celebrities and a British soldier in Iraq. Hayes also represented two Labour councillors accused of postal ballot fraud in Birmingham. Hayes works at Goldsmith Chambers on whose website he is described as specialising in leading high-profile murder, drugs, rape and fraud cases. He discontinued the rape prosecution of Liam Allan in December 2017 after it was discovered that the police had withheld tens of