Six bodies have since been recovered, and hopes of finding the rest trapped under the debris had virtually disappeared.Then at 5.37 yesterday morning, rescuers stopped work when they heard a muffled sound from under the wreckage of what used to be Bimbadeen, the lodge where Mr Diver and other staff at the resort lived.Steve Hirst, a fireman, lay on his stomach and called: "Rescue team working overhead. "A miracle has occurred," police chief superintendent Charlie Sanderson said after Stuart Diver's muffled voice was heard under the tonnes of rubble just before dawn broke on Saturday. Cheers and claps broke out among 400 emergency workers at Thredbo, a ski resort in southern New South Wales, when Mr Diver was finally lifted from under three layers of concrete.The landslide hit just before midnight on Wednesday. Rescuers in Australia are hoping for a second miracle today after pulling a 27-year-old ski instructor from under the rubble of a landslide, where he had survived for almost three days in darkness and freezing temperatures. But he would be able to answer questions on his specific ministerial responsibility for the Millennium Experience after the Commons returned from its summer break at the end of October."If Mr Baker wants to spend tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money delighting himself with rather pointless questions, that is a matter for his judgement and his constituents.

It is not a matter for me to comment on, and I would not do so.". "I hope Peter 'the monk' Mandelson's own apparent vow of silence to the House will be broken by the new Code of Conduct next session."Mr Mandelson said last night that as a minister without portfolio he could not be questioned in Parliament. Peter Mandelson, the Minister without Portfolio and the Government's most loquacious spin doctor, has not spoken in the House of Commons for more than a year. He was last heard from as an opposition MP on 11 July 1996, in a debate on the civil service. The minister yesterday came under fire from a new Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has tried - with little success - to call him to account through the parliamentary device of written questions.A typical question last week asked what percentage of Mr Mandelson's working time was spent on ministerial duty and how much on "other matters." The minister replied : "I devote whatever time I judge necessary to the fulfilment of my ministerial and other duties."Mr Baker, MP for Lewes, said the Government's new Code of Conduct for Ministers stated that ministers should be "as open as possible with Parliament and the public"."The Minister without Portfolio is becoming the minister without accountability," he said. Prince Charles is known to have favoured a private finance solution to the problem of funding for a replacement, while the Duke of Edinburgh wanted a state commitment.The Queen is thought to have had some misgivings about the prospects of private company logos on her yacht.Geoffrey Robinson profile, page 21. The Queen made it known privately that she would prefer to see the ship scrapped than become a hotel or a floating tourist attraction.The royal yacht was due to be retired from active service this year, after playing a leading role in Britain's handover celebrations in Hong Kong at the end of June.

Chris Patten, the last governor of the colony, and the Prince of Wales sailed away on Britannia with flags flying and bands playing. "We have never been against a new royal yacht," said a senior government source. "But the taxpayer should not be forced to pay for it."Britannia was commissioned in 1954, and has since travelled more than a million miles all over the globe, on 700 royal visits. It was to be in service by 2002, the 50th anniversary of the Queen's accession. Gordon Brown, then Shadow Chancellor, said that a Labour government would not spend taxpayers' money on a new Britannia.Labour accused the Tories of seeking to make political capital out of the Royal family in the run-up to the general election, and some MPs denounced the project as "a symbol of extravagance and irrelevance".The Paymaster General's plan adheres to Labour's pre-election promise not to finance a replacement vessel from public funds, and brings a high- profile project to the Treasury's revamped PFI scheme. Ministers envisage that the crew will also include a Commonwealth Cadet Force of perhaps 50 young people, who will receive training on board the ship.

The cadets would be changed every year.The government believes its PFI plans for Britannia will prove acceptable to the Queen. In January this year, the then Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, prompted public controversy when he announced plans to build a new royal yacht at a cost to the public purse of pounds 60m. Income so generated would be used to repay the loans.MoD chiefs have been told that the Royal Navy will operate the vessel. The refit would be paid not from public funds, but through the government's Private Finance Initiative.Under the Robinson plan, which has already been put to the Ministry of Defence and will shortly go to Buckingham Palace, 30-year loans would be secured from the City and other private sector sources such as banks.A completely-renovated Britannia would then be available for hire by big business - and possibly foreign dignitaries such as the Saudi royal house The Queen would also pay rent to use it. The Royal yacht Britannia may be saved by a pounds 50m government scheme to refit the vessel in a British shipyard. Geoffrey Robinson, the multi-millionaire Paymaster General, has drawn up plans for a complete makeover of the Queen's favourite way of travel. Britannia would get new engines, state-of-the-art electronic navigation systems and a lavish refurbishment of the state and private rooms.

He said: "Millionaire status comes in sight of wealthy middle-class families now because being a millionaire is not what it was in the 1920s. Inflation has eroded the value of one million pounds."If you compare what the pound buys you now with what it could have bought you in the Seventies, which was probably 20 times more, then in terms of actual real wealth it has become 20 times easier to become a millionaire."Adding to the ease are the National Lottery which has created 390 millionaires (not including any of last night's potential winners), Littlewoods Pools who are waiting to notch up their 100th winner, and Ernie, thePremium Bonds computer, who picked his 41st pounds 1m winner on Friday.. There is a knock-on effect from share dealings of families who have lots of smaller investments, and that's a way their wealth will increase."Ian Harcus, manager of UK financial services for Datamonitor, agrees. People such as Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United (salary pounds 500,000 a year, plus bonuses), Gerry Robinson, chairman of the Granada group and Waheed Alli, a joint director of television company Planet 24, all supported Labour in the run-up to the election.Mr Thorne said: "It's increasingly becoming fairly well-to-do families investing their money cannily AB earners are only the tip of the iceberg. "You might well be justified in saying that the legal profession is going to be the next to start producing millionaires."There are probably around a dozen barristers at the top of their profession who are taking home pay packets of more than pounds 1m - some of them leading left-wingers and defenders of civil liberties such as QCs Anthony Scrivener and Geoffrey Robertson - while many senior partners in City solicitors' firms are following close behind with around pounds 800,000 per year.A second tier of lawyers, one step down from senior QCs and partners, will be earning lower amounts but sums that are substantial enough to take them into the millionaire bracket when the value of their property is taken into account.Also joining the professionals are an increasing number of elderly people who have benefited from the property boom, shrewd saving and investment, along with the more obvious candidates to the millionaires' club such as sport and music stars.Fears that a Labour government would increase taxes prompted pre-election sales of stocks and shares earlier this year, which in turn created many millionaires, but a lot of those who supported Labour had already made their money before then.