UK News 30-09-2002 Currie Angry At Secret Lover`s Shame who: Edwina Currie what: Says John Major is "sad" for expressing shame over affair when: Today snippet: "Edwina Currie today reveals it was easy to seduce her lover John Major," says The Sun following the weekend`s dramatic news that the unlikely couple had a secret four-year affair between 1984 and 1988. "The ex-Tory minister, 55, also tells of her anger and hurt at hearing Mr Major say he was ashamed of their affair." "I`m pleased that he has not tried to deny any of this that would have been foolish," says Ms Currie in The Times, where her diaries are being exclusively published. "But it`s sad he was unable to say a kind word. These are secrets which have been kept for the best part of 15 years. There were a lot of pain involved in keeping those secrets." Arguably the story deserves the trivial treatment given to it by The Mirror`s Sue Carroll, who reckons Mr Major`s "kudos ratings have never been higher" because Dale Winton thinks he`s got "nice broad shoulders" and apparently "women are crawling out of the woodwork to reveal the unspeakable... the former Prime Minister is actually a bit of all right". The Guardian`s coverage dwells on the "what if?" aspect to the story, making the assumption that Mr Major would never have been PM had the news been made public earlier in his career. "Instead of presiding over the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, the Gulf war, the ERM debacle and the disastrous back-to-basics policy, Mr Major`s political legacy would have been little more than a soon-forgotten ministerial resignation," muses the article by Michael White and Paul Kelso. "It is an irony that will not have been lost on MPs Piers Merchant, Tim Yeo, Hartley Booth, and above all, David Mellor, to mention just some of the casualties of Mr Major`s ill-judged campaign." [... more]

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