The Liberal Democrats leadership campaign lurched further towards disaster today as Simon Hughes, the darling of the party activists, admitted that he had hidden a gay past.

In an interview with The Sun newspaper, the Lib Dem President - who recently declared that he had no "skeletons" in his closet - confessed to a number of homosexual relationships.

Mr Hughes, who until today has repeatedly denied being gay, also admitted to phoning Man Talk, a gay chatline.

He said he had never paid for sex and added that no "element of illegality" had been involved. He told The Sun: "I am perfectly willing to say that I have had both homosexual and heterosexual relationships in the past.

"I hope that does not disqualify me from doing a good job in public life and I propose to carry on doing that with the usual enthusiasm and determination."

The MP for Southwark and Bermondsey accepted that he had been "overly defensive over questions about my sexuality".

But unlike fellow leadership hopeful Mark Oaten, who resigned on Saturday night when threatened with revelations that he used a gay rent boy, Mr Hughes vowed to stay in the race to succeed Charles Kennedy.

An official at his leadership campaign office said that as far as she knew, Mr Hughes was still intending to launch his campaign tomorrow at 12.30pm in the Manchester City football stadium.

It is unclear what prompted Mr Hughes into his public admission. In an interview published in The Guardian just a few days ago, he said that he "often" thought about getting married but had not been "as successful as I would have liked".

Asked bluntly by the Independent last week whether he was gay, he said: "The answer is no, as it happens."

Mr Hughes, 54, today said he believed that the admission over his sexuality would not affect his bid for the Lib Dem leadership. "Nobody has a perfect life. I have never claimed I have. Very few people have simple lives," he said.

He later embarked on a round of media interviews where he explained that the different social climate of the 1980s when he was first elected to parliament had made it impossible for him to admit to gay experiences.

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