Prime Minister candidate Liz Truss came under scrutiny in 2009 over an alleged affair with a Conservative MP.
The Foreign Secretary, who is battling Rishi Sunak for the Tory leadership, has been married to accountant Hugh O'Leary since 2000. That same year, the then-25-year-old Mrs Truss reportedly first met Mark Field, who was a 36-year-old Conservative backbencher at the time.
Mrs Truss, a qualified accountant like her husband, was assigned Mr Field as a political mentor, according to The Mirror. Mr Field, who represented the Cities of London and Westminster, had studied law at Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
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After working as a lawyer, Mr Field started a legal recruitment company before selling it and entering politics. When he was Shadow Minister for London, he allegedly had an 18-month affair with Mrs Truss until June 2005.
Mr Field and former investment banker Michele Acton's 12-year marriage ended in 2006. Ms Acton cited the alleged affair as a factor in the divorce, the Mail reported.
There was controversy over the alleged affair in 2009 after Mrs Truss was selected for the safe Conservative seat of South West Norfolk. Some senior local Tories claimed they learned of the alleged relationship only after they had chosen Mrs Truss. The party's then-leader David Cameron had to issue a "grovelling" apology to activists to save Mrs Truss from the axe, the Mirror reported at the time.
The Guardian reported that local members eventually moved to back Mrs Truss after a letter from John Maples, then deputy party chairman, in which he apologised for the way Central Office had handled the selection process. In a secret ballot the members voted 132-37 against deselecting Mrs Truss.
When the Daily Mail asked Mrs Truss' husband about the alleged affair, Mr O'Leary reportedly replied: “I don’t want to talk about it.” The couple stayed married and have two daughters. Mrs Truss, who has stayed in the South West Norfolk seat, said in 2019: “I am really happily married.”
Mr O'Leary and Mrs Truss met in 1997 at the Tory party conference. Reflecting on their first date, Truss told You magazine in 2019: “I invited him ice-skating and he sprained his ankle.”
Mr Field went on to become Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific but he left Parliament in 2019, citing disagreement with Government policy on Brexit. He is perhaps best known for a clash earlier that year with Greenpeace activist Janet Barker, which saw him suspended as a minister after being accused of grabbing the climate protester by the neck at a black-tie City event. You can read more politics stories here.
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