He was dubbed Saint Kevin for his sober and avowedly Christian bearing and, having led opinion polls all year, appeared perfectly placed to unseat Australia’s prime minister.

But Kevin Rudd was today having to explain to voters and Labor Party colleagues a visit to an infamous New York strip club during which he said he was too drunk to remember what happened.

The visit to Scores lap dancing club in Manhattan occurred four years ago while Mr Rudd, a cautious, studious and geeky 49-year-old father of three, was on United Nations business.

The former diplomat and China specialist whose political hallmark is his interest in policy and his family, said today that he had made an error of judgment. The news astounded his party, and Mr Rudd said that he expected to take a hit in the polls.

Mr Rudd has shaken up Australian politics since his elevation to the Labour leadership eight months ago. John Howard, the 68-year-old prime minister trying to win a fifth term, is trailing him badly in the polls ahead of the expected November general election and has described him as the toughest opponent he has faced.

Mr Rudd admitted to visiting Scores late at night after his dinner companion, Col Allan, the brash, hard living Australian editor of the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch — chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, parent company of The Times — suggested they have another drink.

Mr Rudd told Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, also owned by Mr Murdoch and which learnt of his excursion to Scores, that he made a foolish mistake. Also present that night was Warren Snowdon, another Labour MP. At the time Mr Rudd was Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman.

The newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying that Mr Rudd was warned by the Scores management against touching strippers. Mr Allan said Mr Rudd had “behaved like a perfect gentleman”.

Mr Rudd, a conservative Christian, said he was too drunk to remember what happened at Scores. He said neither he nor Mr Snowdon had a “completely clear recollection” of whether there were semi-naked women in the club or what they were doing.

“We can’t actually recall anything that you wouldn’t see in most pubs across Australia,” Mr Rudd said yesterday. “But that doesn’t absolve me for going in that door in the first place. That’s where I made the error of judgment and it’s something I shouldn’t have done.” Mr Rudd was in New York to represent Australia at the United Nations.

Just a week ago, Mr Rudd, in a webacast to Australian Christians, reiterated his faith saying: “Personal faith also provides a compass point for my life. It therefore helps shape the view I try to bring to the public space as well.”

Mr Rudd said today that he was not a big drinker and could only remember two occasions when he had drunk too much - the Scores night and at home on his 35th birthday.

“I’ve said from day one since I’ve been in public life - I’m as flawed and failed as the rest of them,” he said. “We’d had too much to drink, I accept that, but I think the big error made was just in going in there in the first place.”

The Labor Party today attacked the journalist who unearthed their leader’s night at Scores, Glenn Milne, for his own previous alcohol-fuelled behaviour.

Mr Milne last year ran onto the stage during Australia’s nationally televised annual journalism awards and began punching and shoving the host who he accused of showing a lack of ethics.

He later apologised, blaming a combination of alcohol and medication for his rampage - and kept his job.

And so, too, will Mr Rudd. His party’s tacticians may well be privately grateful for their leader’s admission that he has once been led to trouble by alcohol, for this is nation suspicious of Saints and not unforgiving of sinners.

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