London: A Tory Cabinet Minister was in
the middle of a sex scandal after he allegedly cheated on his
wife and slept with a blonde lover.
50-year-old Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the Lords,
allegedly seduced 48-year-old Birgit Cunningham, a former
friend of Liz Hurley and ex-girlfriend of Kevin Costner, at
her flat and at his 3 million pounds Westminster home, the
`Daily Mail` reported.
Their last tryst is said to have taken place nine days
ago on Friday, January 14, when Lord Strathclyde took time off
from his Cabinet duties to visit Roedean-educated Cunningham,
it said.
Lord Strathclyde, one of the last genuine Tory
grandees and among Prime Minister David Cameron`s most trusted
confidants, allegedly gave Cunningham 40 pounds when he
visited her.
The half-Belgian hereditary peer, born as Thomas
Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith, has been happily
married to his wife Jane for nearly 20 years, the paper said.
They have three daughters and divide their time
between their London home and Lord Strathclyde`s family estate
in Mauchline, Ayrshire.
Cunningham was a member of the so-called Brit Pack of
celebrities and socialites who took Hollywood by storm in the
eighties. She has a son by a partner, Sir Harry Nuttall, but
now describes herself as a single mother.
According to a newspaper report, Lord Strathclyde
seduced Cunningham after she contacted him pleading for help
in her battle with the Child Support Agency, the `Daily Mail`
stated.
The pair first became friends in 1987 when Cunningham
met the peer on the London socialites` party scene. She worked
as stockbroker in the City and lived on a private estate in
Surrey, it said.
Cunningham moved to the US in the 1990s where she
lived with Miss Hurley, dated Kevin Costner and partied with
stars including Brad Pitt and Naomi Campbell.
She returned to London in 1997, becoming a Press
officer for the Green party, and fell for millionaire former
racing driver Harry Nuttall, a baronet.
They had a son Jack, 8, but Cunningham says the
child`s father offered to pay only 5.40 pounds a week
leaving her struggling to raise her son in a run-down council
flat above a chip shop in Ladbroke Grove, West London, it
said.
PTI
