There is one word that frightens politicians more than any other: scandal.
They know that scandal can bring about personal ruin, cut short a promising career and even bring down a government.
The power of scandal is that it imprints itself on the public mind. Some are about sex, others about money, drugs or espionage. But they are all about power: the corrupter, the ultimate aphrodisiac.
This is your guide to the scandalous world of Westminster. Read on.
50. Sex and the Palace, March 2009
You wait years for a good, old-fashioned Commons sex scandal, and then one comes along and is immediately buried by weightier political controversy.
It was 22 March 2009 when the News of the World ran its exclusive on Nigel Griffiths. The married Labour MP for Edinburgh South had ‘cavorted’ with a mystery brunette in his Commons office — on Remembrance Day, of all days — and recorded the whole thing on camera.
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