Tony Blair today led the tributes to the former Conservative minister John Profumo, who resigned in a sensational sex scandal, following his death at the age of 91.
Profumo died from a stroke at the Cheslea and Westminster Hospital at around midnight last night. He was surrounded by his family and had been admitted to the hospital two days earlier, a spokesman said.
The former Tory secretary of state for war was at the centre of the most dramatic political scandal of the 20th century. He was forced to resign from the cabinet for lying to the Commons over his affair with the call girl Christine Keeler.
Harold Macmillan's cabinet was plunged into crisis by Ms Keeler's revelations that she had had sex with both Profumo and Commander Eugene Ivanov, a Russian intelligence officer and the Soviet assistant naval attache in London.
In March 1963, Profumo - having protested his innocence to his ministerial colleagues - was forced to make a personal Commons statementin which he denied any "impropriety whatever" in his relationship with Ms Keeler.
He resigned on June 4 after admitting to the prime minister that he had misled him, the government and the House of Commons.
Friday, March 10, 2006
JOHN PROFUMO DEAD AT 91
The kids ask: Who? The grown-ups nod in remembrance of the sex scandal. The Guardian briefs us:
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