A junior minister forced to resign from Edward Heath's Tory government over a three-in-a-bed sex scandal told MI5 that he turned to prostitutes because he was bored by the "futility" of his job, it was disclosed yesterday.
Lord Lambton resigned in May 1973 as minister for the RAF after he was photographed naked in bed with two call girls smoking a cannabis cigarette.
Following his resignation, Lambton nonchalantly told television presenter Robin Day that he had used "whores for sex" because "people sometimes like variety. It's as simple as that."
However files released to the National Archives under the 30-year rule, reveal that beneath the aristocratic sang froid, there were fears Lambton could be driven to suicide by the scandal. Lambton was interviewed for the inquiry by a MI5 officer, Charles Elwell. "He rather implied that the futility of the job was one of the reasons he had got up to mischief ('idle hands' etc)," Elwell noted. Elwell said that Lambton appeared to be in a state of shock over what had happened. - (PA)