'Currie acted like cheap trollop'

SENIOR Conservatives and close friends of John Major yesterday rallied around the former premier as more details emerged of his four-year affair with Edwina Currie.

The bombshell disclosure by Mrs Currie, that she and Mr Major were lovers between 1984 and 1988, when she was a junior Health Minister and he was in the Whips Office, emerged at the weekend as The Times published extracts from her diaries.

The book, which it is estimated, could earn Mrs Currie a handsome five-figure sum looks set to top the best-seller list for political works.

But yesterday, there was an angry backlash from some of Mr Major's associates, and ex-Westminster colleagues as they defended their former boss after what they see as Mrs Currie's shocking betrayal.

David Mellor, one of Mr Major's closest Cabinet allies accused Mrs Currie of acting like a "cheap trollop" over her revelations and only deciding to go public to make money.

Mr Mellor, who resigned as Heritage Secretary in 1992 over a sex scandal, wrote in the Evening Standard:

"So, basically, she sold John Major down the river for cash, like a cheap trollop. According to the Daily Mail, the former prime minister feared his affair with Mrs Currie had wrecked his ambition to become a Knight of the Garter, the highest honour the Queen can bestow.

All other surviving former prime ministers are members of the Order and he was said to be "desperate" to join Sir Edward Heath, Lord Callaghan and Baroness Thatcher in its ranks.

Mr Major's friend said: "He is genuinely a commoner, that is why he didn't want to go to the House of Lords. "So, I don't think you will find he is kept awake at night by worries about the Garter."

The diaries reveal that the couple ended the relationship in 1988 as Mr Major's political career was beginning to take off.

Mr Major described the affair as the event in his life of which he was "most ashamed", a comment which yesterday brought an angry response from Mrs Currie. She told The Times: "He was not very ashamed of it at the time, I can tell you. I think I am slightly indignant about that remark."

While she was pleased that the former premier had not been so "foolish" as to try to deny the relationship, she added: "It's sad he was unable to say a kind word.

"These are secrets which have been kept for the best part of 15 years. There was a lot of pain involved in keeping those secrets."

The owners of the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport newspapers are asking John Major to return stg£50,000 of their money, lost after a legal settlement over his alleged extra-marital sex life. In a statement issued yesterday, Sport Newspapers Ltd said that if the former prime minister refuses to pay the money to a charity of the newspapers' choice it will result in court action.

Sport Newspapers was the major shareholder behind Scallywag magazine when it claimed that Mr Major was having an affair with a Downing Street caterer, Clare Latimer, in the early 1990s.

As a result of the threatened legal action, Sport Newspapers withdrew support from Scallywag magazines and it ceased to publish. The affair was subsequently proved not to have taken place and Mr Major was paid around £1,000 in legal costs. The newspaper group said it is still owed £50,000 following the collapse of Scallywag.

Sport Newspapers owner David Sullivan said: "While the alleged affair with a caterer clearly did not take place, John Major had been having sex outside his marriage with Edwina Currie.

"I intend to pursue John Major and force him to pay that amount to charity. If he fails to do so, I will take him to court to make him return our money." In the first extract of her diaries, Edwina Currie, the flamboyant ex-minister disclosed that her relationship with Mr Major was not her first extra-marital affair.

"I needed a friend. The first one on offer turned out to be a right slob, with some kinky preferences and a selfishness of such magnitude as I've never met before.

"Then B (her codename for Mr Major) came along and he was so attractive and so quiet in public that it was a challenge to unearth the real person, and to seduce him easy."

A former press secretary to Mr Major claimed it would have been "very difficult" for him to carry on as Prime Minister if his affair with Mrs Currie had been revealed at the time.