Gay claim gets former aide barred

The White House has banned all contacts with disgraced political guru, Mr Dick Morris, after he suggested in a radio interview…

The White House has banned all contacts with disgraced political guru, Mr Dick Morris, after he suggested in a radio interview that President Clinton would stray if the First Lady were gay.

"He's part of some other planetary system," the White House spokesman, Mr Mike McCurry, said yesterday, adding that Mr Morris had completely "ruptured" his relationship with the Clintons.

"The President had exactly the reaction you'd expect," said an apparently furious Mr McCurry. On a radio-talk show, asked about the sexual scandal which has engulfed the presidency, Mr Morris said: "Let's assume that his [Mr Clinton's] sexual relationship with Hillary is not all that it is supposed to be. Let's assume that some of the allegations that Hillary sometimes, not necessarily being into regular sex with men, might be true. . ."

Mr Morris was sacked from the White House in 1996 after his affair and political pillow talk with a high-priced prostitute was exposed, but he had kept in contact with the President. Later yesterday Mr Morris issued a statement in which he denied saying Mrs Clinton "was gay". "Hillary is, to my knowledge, not gay," he said. "I have a very high regard for both Bill and Hillary Clinton and only wish them well in this extremely difficult time."