UK MP’s wife calls posing nude furore ’storm in a bedsheet’

LONDON - UK MP John Bercow’s wife, Sally, who posed in a racy photo shoot for a magazine has admitted that it was “foolish” of her to do so, but dismissed the incident as “harmless fun.”

She added that the photo was “quite tasteful”.

Bercow’s interview in the Evening Standard accompanied by a picture of her wearing only a bed sheet in a hotel room overlooking Parliament, has raised eyebrows in Westminster.

“I’m a bit surprised at the storm that it’s caused. Obviously it has completely backfired on me and I look a complete idiot… I didn’t think through the implications,” the BBC Radio 5 Live quoted her as saying.

“I actually think it’s quite a tasteful photograph as I say, it was all meant to be a bit of harmless fun. But the trouble is because I’m married to the Speaker, whatever I do is put in the media and used against him,” she said.

The Conservative Children’s Minister Tim Loughton tweeted, “Someone needs to tell Mrs Speaker Bercow not just to shut up but to cover up as well.”

And former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe criticised the article, saying, “She isn’t contributing to the dignity of the office, he’s detached from the Commons, detached from party politics, above it all - and people don’t want to sit there looking at him wondering what’s happening in his private life.”

“I’m a personality, I’ve got ambitions of my own and it was just meant to be a bit of fun… My husband’s not exactly thrilled about it, but he’s pretty cool really,” Bercow said. (ANI)