The Government is attempting to stop Kelly Clarkson taking a ring that once belonged to Jane Austen out of the country after the US singer bought it at auction.

Clarkson picked up the sweet little gold and turquoise ring, below, believed to be one of only three pieces of jewellery the Sense and Sensibility writer owned, for more than £150,000 but now the culture minister Ed Vaizey has put a temporary export ban on the ring so that American Idol winner Clarkson can’t take it back to her native Texas.

He is appealing for an English buyer to come forward (Leona Lewis? Michelle McManus?) to match the price so that the rare antiquity – little Austen paraphernalia exists because of her modest lifestyle and early death – can stay in the country. 

If a buyer isn’t found, Vaizey’s export ban will lapse and Clarkson, who is a fervent Austen fan and owns a first edition of Austen's last completed novel Persuasion, will be allowed to keep the ring.

The whole unlikely scenario – who ever thought they would see the names Kelly Clarkson, Ed Vaizey and Jane Austen in the same sentence – almost sounds like the premise for a sweetly comic romantic novel…