The party unfaithful: Labour’s list of leftie lotharios
THE affair between Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott is the latest in a long line involving senior Labour politicians.
Barbara Castle, arguably the party’s most prominent female figure, embarked on a lengthy affair with married Leftwing journalist William Mellor.
After his death in 1942, his young mistress married Ted Castle – a Labour activist and MEP.
Later, Roy Jenkins, Labour’s Home Secretary between 1974 and 1976, had a gay affair with education secretary Anthony Crosland, according to a biography.
As well as the fellow Cabinet minister, he also counted the wives of several friends among his other sexual conquests.
Former party leader Michael Foot enjoyed a 20-year relationship with Elizabeth Thomas, a friend of his feminist film-maker wife Jill Craigie. A second secretary shared
‘Two women at the same time’
liaisons with the married politician during Labour conferences, according to his biography. In it, he echoed the words of satirist Jonathan Swift when he said: ‘I thought people could be in love with two women at the same time.’
Tony Blair’s Foreign Secretary Robin Cook embarked on an infamous affair with his Commons secretary Gaynor Regan – who he later married.
In a race to warn the Livingston MP that The News of the World had got hold of the story in 1997, spin doctor Alastair Campbell tracked down Mr Cook at Heathrow as he was about to catch a flight to the US with wife Margaret.
She later claimed in a book that the Foreign Secretary abandoned her there before they were due to depart for Boston. She also claimed the senior minister had several extra-marital affairs.
The couple divorced soon afterwards and Mr Cook married Miss Regan in 1998. Given their ideological belief in sharing, Labour has a history of men having relationships with the same women.
Scottish secretary Donald Dewar’s wife left him for future lord chancellor Derry Irvine. Both Dewar and Irvine served together in Tony Blair’s first Cabinet, but never reconciled. Most recently, it emerged Ed Miliband and his Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls once courted Stephanie Flanders, a former BBC journalist who know works for JP Morgan.
She met Mr Balls in 1989 at Harvard University where they were both Kennedy scholars. Miss Flanders dated Mr Miliband for a brief period in 2004. In 2006, Labour grandee John Prescott admitted an affair with his secretary Tracey Temple after they met at a Westminster Christmas party in 2002.
The former Deputy Prime Minister met the admin worker – who was 24 years his junior – at his grace-and-favour Whitehall flat and his 215-acre country retreat in Buckinghamshire before ending the affair two years later.
His wife Pauline later said she had ‘accepted’ the affair but not forgiven him. The couple are still married and she gave a 2011 TV interview in which she described the devastating moment he told her of the affair.
The party has also seen several husband and wife teams, including Ann and Alan Keen, Bridget and Gordon Prentice as well as Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey.