Maple 01
From the
Guardian stable - somewhat to the left of of Mrs Schicklgruber’s little boy.
Prescott exploited me, says tearful ex-mistress
· Emotional television statement hits at Deputy PM
· I'm a laughing stock, he tells confidants
Ned Temko and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday April 30, 2006
The Observer
John Prescott's former mistress last night tearfully claimed she had been the victim of lies and had no choice but to go public with intimate details of their two-year affair.
In a television statement shortly before her account was splashed across nine pages of a Sunday newspaper, Prescott's diary secretary, Tracey Temple, said she felt she 'had to let people know the truth. But I never, ever thought I would actually have to do anything like this.'
Her interview, accompanied by extracts from a diary which she kept, raised concerns among close Cabinet colleagues that Prescott might quit his job and in turn prompt a challenge to Tony Blair's leadership.
Temple told the Mail on Sunday she had sex with Prescott in his Whitehall office, that the couple had sex immediately after attending the Iraq war memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral, and that they had sex in a hotel while his wife Pauline was downstairs. Among the most damaging of her allegations will be a claim that the relationship was carried out in Prescott's office while staff worked outside and that they also met at his flat in Admiralty Arch, which is paid for by the taxpayer……………..
……………..The newspaper also claimed to have exposed a second affair it said Prescott had had with a married former Labour Parliamentary candidate, which took place 20 years ago - an allegation likely to prove particularly hurtful to his wife of 44 years, Pauline, at a time when friends said she was seething over the affair with Temple.
Cabinet sources told The Observer that they were particularly concerned about the possible political fallout from Prescott's troubles at a time when another top minister, the Home Secretary Charles Clarke, remained under fire over the failure to deport foreign prisoners on their release from UK jails.