TOO LIBERAL Lord Steel’s partying son, 53, claims he was booted out of hotel
EX-LIBERAL leader David Steel’s son claims he was kicked out of a top hotel for hellraising – at 53.
Graeme Steel said he was ejected at the four star resort this week for blaring out music and refusing to stop smoking in his room.
It happened days after his dad,
81, quit the Liberal Democrats and the Lords over claims he turned a blind eye to historic child abuse allegations against his MP Cyril Smith.
It’s the latest controversy for Graeme, eldest of Lord Steel’s three children.
A woman friend died after downing a cocktail of booze and cocaine in a hot tub at his 52nd birthday party. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by him.
He was jailed for nine months in 1995 after police found 40 cannabis plants in a raid on his home.
A court heard he was growing them so he didn’t embarrass his father – who campaigned to legalise the drug – by being caught buying off dealers in streets.
Graeme’s latest shaming happened at Macdonald Aviemore Resort, in
Cairngorms national park, which boasts fine dining, woodland lodges and an 18-hole golf course.
Other guests complained of being disturbed by loud music and an acrid smell of cigarette smoke.
A letter to Graeme’s room, which he posted on Facebook, read: “We have received numerous complaints from surrounding guests of the smell of smoke coming from your bedroom.
“Our fire alarm has also shown a fault with the detector within your room and upon investigation we have found your smoke detector to be covered with a sock. This is a serious breach of our health and safety regulations and must be removed immediately. Smoking inside any of our rooms incurs a £100 cleaning charge which has been added to your bill. We have also received two complaints about loud music. Again, I must ask that this stops immediately.
“Failure to comply with the two requests above will unfortunately leave us no option but to ask you to leave our premises.”
Later that night, landscaping business boss Mr Steel posted an update to friends which read: “Been kicked out. Off to the nightclub.” He added: “Let the haters hate.”
The caption, underneath a photo with an elderly man at Aviemore’s local Vault nightclub, which is open until 3am, continued, “Vault nightclub is for everyone”.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse this week criticised Lord Steel for not acting on complaints about exrochdale MP Cyril Smith, who died in 2010, aged 82. It accused Lord Steel of an “abdication of responsibility”.
Lord Steel said he was quitting the Liberal Democrats and as a life peer because he wanted to avoid “distress” for his family and “turmoil” for his party.
He said he was being made “a proxy for Cyril Smith”, who was investigated over allegations of sexually abusing teenage boys in 1969.
Lord Steel had told the inquiry that he was made aware of the allegations against Smith 10 years later.
He said he “assumed” that they were true but added that they were “nothing to do with me” because they predated Smith’s time in Parliament. Smith became MP for Rochdale in 1972.