Tommy Sheridan told the jury in his libel suit against The News of the World that his weaknesses are for "Scrabble and sunbeds" rather than sex and swingers' clubs today.

The former leader of Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), who sacked his legal team ten days ago, opened his case against the newspaper with a five-minute speech in which he promised to disprove stories that he had cheated on his wife and taken part in orgies.

On the 14th day of the £200,000 defamation action, which has seen witnesses breaking into tears and Mr Sheridan subjecting his party comrades to bad-tempered cross examinations, the MSP said he had devoted his life to his political ideals.

"I am hardly likely to have time for any secret life of sexual Olympics," he told the Court of Session in Edinburgh. "You will hear of my addiction to Scrabble and sunbeds, not champagne, cocaine and swingers’ clubs."

Mr Sheridan is suing The News of the World over articles that appeared in November 2004 and January last year, calling him a "spanking swinger" and alleging to tell the story of "My Kinky Four-in-a-Bed Orgy with Tommy".

Fiona McGuire, a 32-year-old former prostitute and Socialist Party worker has told the trial that she had many as a dozen sexual encounters with Mr Sheridan after his marriage in 2000.

Under cross-examination on July 12, Ms McGuire said that she had taken cocaine with Mr Sheridan during an orgy and later told an edited, romanticised version of the story to The News of the World.

Last week, Allan Green, the national secretary of the SSP, told the court that Mr Sheridan had admitted to the party's executive committee that he had attended swingers' clubs but intended to deny the allegations made by the newspaper.

Mr Sheridan said this afternoon that his evidence would demonstrate to the jury "the truth about me as an individual and a socialist."

"It will establish that the liars and the hypocrites are within The News of the World beast and that I did not have an affair with Fiona McGuire or anyone else during my marriage.

"I have never attended a swingers’ club. I have never had sex with a prostitute or attended a sex party in a hotel. The evidence will show that I don’t drink alcohol or snort cocaine.

"The evidence will demonstrate that the real liars and hypocrites are on the side of The News of the World, not me," he said.

The trial continues.

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