The race for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats, Britain’s second opposition party, was buffeted on Thursday by news reports of gay sex, lies and alcohol.
Simon Hughes, the leadership contender for Britain’s second opposition Liberal Democrats, admitted on Thursday having had gay relationships and lying about it when asked.
Hughes’ admission comes after the resignation of former leader Charles Kennedy over a drink problem and allegations that colleague Mark Oaten used male prostitutes that surfaced after he quit the race for party leadership.
The news reports over the last month have hurt the party as a whole in opinion polls.
It was not immediately clear what impact Hughes’s confession would have on his chances to win the top job, which he still seeks.
Nominations for the party leadership closed on Wednesday with the entry of Hughes, the party president, economics spokesperson Chris Huhne and acting leader and former Olympic sprinter Menzies Campbell in the race.
The three candidates now face a five-week campaign to win the support of the party’s 73 000 members in a postal ballot ending on March 1, with the new leader named on March 2.
“I am perfectly willing to say that I have had both homosexual and heterosexual relationships in the past,” 54-year-old Hughes told Britain’s mass circulation tabloid The Sun in an interview published on Thursday.
“I hope that does not disqualify me from doing a good job in public life and I propose to carry on doing that with the usual enthusiasm and determination.”
But unlike fellow leadership hopeful Oaten, Hughes vowed to stay in the race to succeed Kennedy.
The Sun‘s Sunday sister paper the News of the World said Oaten, a married father of two, quit as the party’s home affairs spokesperson when confronted with allegations of seeing male prostitutes. It said he quit the leadership race for the same reason.
Hughes said in a statement following the newspaper article — in which he also admitted using gay chatlines — that he did not believe a person’s sexual orientation was a bar to public office.
“I do believe that anything that I have done has impinged upon my capacity to serve my constituents or fulfil any of the roles that I have sought, undertaken or am seeking for the future,” he added.
Hughes, who is single, told The Guardian and The Independent newspapers in recent days that he was not gay.
He admitted to The Sun that “perhaps in the last few days I was overly defensive over questions about my sexuality”.
The member of Parliament first came to prominence when he stood against gay rights activist Peter Tatchell in a 1983 by-election for the south London seat of Bermondsey.
His campaign — in which he was presented as “the straight choice” — was criticised at the time for focusing on Tatchell’s sexuality.
Hughes said earlier in the week he would bring back Oaten if he were elected, even though he conceded the scandal around Oaten had damaged the party.
“There’s a tradition in British politics that we are understanding of people who get into personal difficulties,” Hughes told a London newspaper.
But the Lib Dems have been losing ground.
The party dropped two points to 19% after the Oaten scandal broke, according to the ICM survey in The Guardian.
The survey found the Conservative party, run by new leader David Cameron, maintained a one point lead over the Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour party on 37%, the same as last month. – AFP