Senior UK lord quits post after drug video
Print Edition
A senior member of Britain’s House of Lords responsible for upholding standards was facing calls to quit the chamber after he was filmed allegedly snorting drugs off a prostitute’s breasts.
Lord John Sewel resigned as deputy speaker of parliament’s upper house and chairman of its privileges and conduct committee — an 82,525-pound (US$128,000) a year post — following a sting in The Sun on Sunday.
However, he remains under pressure to stand down from the chamber altogether.
The police are aware of The Sun’s footage showing him partying naked with two women and snorting a white powder, said to be cocaine.
The main opposition Labour Party also suspended his membership yesterday.
The video showed the married 69-year-old father with a rolled-up 5-pound note wedged in his left nostril, sniffing powder from a woman’s breasts and from a tabletop. The former government minister is also seen relaxing in an orange bra and leather jacket belonging to one of the prostitutes in a picture published yesterday.
Lords Speaker Baroness Frances D’Souza said the “revelations about the behavior of Lord Sewel” were “shocking and unacceptable.”
Serious allegations
“These serious allegations will be referred to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and the Metropolitan Police for investigation as a matter of urgency.”
If he is found to have breached the code of conduct, Sewel could become the first peer to be expelled from the Lords under rules he helped to introduce.
In the video, Sewel is heard discussing the allowance he gets as a peer and telling the two women: “It’s not (for) lunch, luvvie darling — it’s paying for this.”
A former lecturer, Sewel was appointed to the House of Lords since 1996 and served as a junior minister in the Scotland office under Tony Blair’s Labour government.
In his committee chairman role, he wrote on the Huffington Post news website on July 16 that the Lords had just agreed stronger sanctions for misbehavior. “The actions of a few damage our reputation. Scandals make good headlines. The requirement that members must always act on their personal honor has been reinforced.”
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