No Affair, Major Says, Sues British Magazines

Prime Minister John Major instructed his lawyers Thursday to issue libel writs against two magazines that published allegations that he has had an extramarital affair.

His press office on Downing Street issued a denial on Major’s behalf of involvement in an affair. It said he will pay for the lawsuits himself.

The woman named, caterer Clare Latimer, said late Thursday that she also will sue the magazines for libel.

Latimer’s firm has catered Major’s cocktail parties as well as functions for other prominent government officials and politicians.

Major, 49, telephoned his wife, Norma, whom he married in 1970 and with whom he has two children, from Bombay during a visit to India to reassure her when he learned that Britain’s national newspapers would prominently report the allegations in the two magazines.

The publications are the satirical Scallywag, published in London, and the much more serious left-wing review, the New Statesman and Society.

The New Statesman used to run long articles about Marxism and the future of the Labor Party but has been drastically revamped in a bid to recover declining circulation. Its three-page cover story under the headline “The Curious Case of John Major’s ‘Mistress,’ ” detailed at length the various rumors of infidelity by Major, which, it said, had circulated in government circles for the past two years.

Despite the provocative headline and the extensive account of the rumors, the article added that “no one has produced a shred of evidence” to show that an affair actually had occurred. And it quoted Latimer as replying, “The whole thing is just ridiculous, because it is totally untrue.”

The prime minister’s press statement declared: “The suggestions covered in the article that there may be any association between the prime minister and the lady in question are completely untrue. That is a statement of fact.”

The legal action is likely to worsen relations between Britain’s freewheeling press and the political Establishment. Officials and politicians have threatened the press with legal muzzling after a yearlong spate of stories about the peccadilloes of the Royal Family and at least one government Cabinet minister.

New Statesman Editor Steve Platt, who co-authored the story, said the magazine was only making an “honest effort” to expose the smear about the alleged affair. Simon Regan, editor-publisher of the Scallywag, was more defiant, declaring that there is “worse to come--we have got a secret weapon that we have not used yet because we were expecting this situation. We have got an ace in the pack.”

It is rare for British prime ministers to sue for libel. Harold Wilson, a Labor prime minister, launched several defamation actions, and Winston S. Churchill, a Conservative, once sued the Daily Mirror over a headline implying that he was a warmonger.