Montgomeryshire MP Lembit Opik has been branded “silly” by some voters following revelations about his so-called private life in celebrity magazine Hello!

Lembit’s decision to do a joint interview with the new love in his life Cheeky Girl singer, Gabriela Irimia, for this week’s edition of the glossy magazine, meant that he had to endure more ribbing from fellow MPs in the House of Commons during Welsh question time on Wednesday.

There were shouts of “Hello!” and “Cheeky Boy” in a reference to his interview as he rose to ask a question on energy.

And although Lembit retorted with “last week’s joke”, Welsh secretary Peter Hain continued the teasing, saying Mr Opik had “scrubbed up rather nicely, or rather cheekily” for the eight-page article.But such light-hearted banter in the House of Commons has rankled with some voters in Mid Wales.

The December announcement that Lembit’s two-year engagement to TV weather presenter Sian Lloyd was over and he was now dating Gabriela had sparked a media frenzy, along with criticisms that he was putting his celebrity life above the well-being of his constituency.

Though Lib Dem supporters in Montgomeryshire have remained loyally tight-lipped throughout the escalating publicity, others have been slightly more inclined to voice openly what others are saying privately.

Elizabeth Sheriff, Newtown mayor, said Mr Opik’s private life should be his own.

But she added: “I do think he’s being a bit silly. I feel sorry for his party and the people who voted for him.”

Councillor Gareth Morgan, Powys County Council member for Llanidloes, Montgomeryshire, the first Liberal to sit on the council, but not a member of the Lib Dem group, said: “I don’t like to intrude on his private affairs.

“I think he is a very competent and committed member of Parliament, somebody I have a high regard for, and I feel reluctant to comment about these personal things.”

But Glyn Davies, Tory AM for Mid and West Wales, has been having fun at Lembit’s expense on his internet ‘blog’.

He writes he had turned down a chance to appear on Good Morning Wales, something he thought he’d never do.

But he adds: “I was asked to tell the listening public what I thought of Lembit’s latest antics.

“I just think it would be a pity to intervene in the process of self-destruction. It seems that he, Gabi, Gabi’s mum and Rocky, the Irish Wolfhound, are plastered all over eight pages of this week’s Hello! magazine – about 24 hours after Lembit told the BBC he did not want to discuss his private life in public.

“Perhaps the BBC should have tried offering him a few shedloads of cash.”

But it is pointed out in Hello! magazine Lembit’s fee for the article has been donated to the Motor Neurone Disease Association – a cause close to his heart since his father’s death from the disease in 2005.

By Deborah Knox and Mike Sivier