As MPs wandered into the Commons tea room last Thursday morning, Liberal Democrat members had a sudden attack of shyness. They looked at the floor, the ceiling and the walls. Anywhere but their rivals — or the tables.

For there, laid out in full view, were several copies of The Sun newspaper with the blaring headline “I’m gay too”. Next to it was a picture of Simon Hughes, would-be leader of the Lib Dems, who was quoted in large type as saying: “I regret my lies . . . I’ve had many gay lovers.”

“There was a feeling of oh no, not again,” said one young Lib Dem MP. “We were all shell-shocked.”

It barely seemed possible. Only eight months earlier the Lib Dems had won the highest number of seats in parliament of any Liberals for almost a century; now the leaders of the “nice” party had been variously exposed as drunk, mendacious and sexually embarrassing. We had seen nothing like it since John Major’s “back to basics” campaign.

First Charles Kennedy, the former leader, had quit after slurring the truth about his alcoholism; then Mark Oaten, home affairs spokesman and a married man, had fled the public gaze after revelations of “unspeakable” acts with rent boys. Now Hughes, a stalwart for 20 years, had been caught out as well.

It might yet get worse. This weekend Westminster was abuzz with rumours that a senior married Lib Dem could be exposed for having had a mistress. Others were speculating on the identity of the “energy-saving seducer”, an ambitious Lib Dem MP said to have engaged in a “romantic moment” upstairs at a Lib Dem conference — only to have complained that leaving the lights on was a waste of electricity.

Opponents, when they could stop sniggering, gleefully capitalised on the disarray. In some cities Labour and the Tories were welcoming disillusioned Lib Dem activists and councillors as they defected in dismay at the shambles.

One large donor to the party was scathing. “It was an error of judgment to make Mark Oaten home affairs spokesman,” said the benefactor. “He is, with hindsight, a very untrustworthy character.”

Others tried to defend Hughes’s peccadilloes. One of his supporters, Paul Holmes, who is chairman of the parliamentary party, said: “It’s not as though he has misled anyone about weapons of mass destruction or anything.”

Rejecting accusations that he had lied, Hughes yesterday defended his right to privacy. His denial of being gay had not been “intended to mislead”, he said.

Nevertheless, an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu remains. The last time the Liberals were deemed worthy of so much attention was when Jeremy Thorpe, party leader in the 1970s, was accused of homosexuality and tried for incitement and conspiracy to murder.

Are the Lib Dems prone to gay sex scandals or are all politicians risk-takers who think they can get away with their private adventures?

WESTMINSTER is always awash with rumours of infidelity and potential scandal. Current ones include the cabinet minister in his underpants on a hot July evening, desperately trying to seduce a Labour official at his flat; the minister dumped by his secretary lover because he failed to send her flowers when she was in hospital; and the Conservative MP who flaunts his “pretty boy” researchers.

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