Another Sex Scandal Rocks British Government : Politics: Conservative lawmaker denies he had an affair with an aide. But he resigns parliamentary post anyway.

Britain’s government grappled with another sex scandal Sunday after a Conservative lawmaker resigned a parliamentary job over reports that he had an affair with an aide.

The incident, publicized in Sunday tabloids, is one in a series of scandals that have tarnished the government’s “Back to Basics” family values campaign.

The lawmaker, Hartley Booth, 47, denied that he had sexual relations with researcher Emily Barr, 22. But he admitted he was “knocked sideways by the girl,” adding, “I loved her.”

“He said he kissed her but there was no sex. I think he has been a fool. He knows he has been a fool,” said Ron Thurlow, chairman of the Conservative association in Booth’s district. “It is a lapse that is completely out of character, and that is the end of it.”

Booth, a lay preacher and married father of three who inherited former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s North London constituency of Finchley, did not say he will resign as a legislator.

But he announced Saturday that he will quit his post as parliamentary private secretary to a Foreign Office minister.

A parliamentary private secretary assists government ministers in the House of Commons; the job is generally considered the first step up the government ladder by ambitious members of Parliament.

Booth had worked as a secretary to Foreign Office Minister Douglas Hogg, whose wife, Sarah, heads Prime Minister John Major’s policy unit and is thought to have come up with the “Back to Basics” campaign.

Booth told the Press Assn. that he resigned the job “to save any embarrassment to the government,” already rocked by a string of sex scandals involving senior Tory lawmakers.

In September, 1992, National Heritage Secretary David Mellor was forced to resign after revelations of his affair with an actress; last year, it was reported that Transport Minister Steve Norris had five mistresses.

Since the beginning of this year, Environment Minister Tim Yeo resigned after disclosures that he fathered a child out of wedlock by a Tory city councilor; Parliament member David Ashby said he shared a bed with another man on a French holiday but denied any sexual impropriety; Lord Caithness resigned as junior transport minister after his wife shot herself to death amid speculation that he had an extramarital affair, and Parliament member Gary Waller admitted he had a child by a House of Commons secretary.

Last week, Parliament member Stephen Milligan, considered one of the Tories’ brightest young stars, was discovered dead in his house clad only in women’s stockings, with an electric cord around his neck and a plastic bag over his head.

Political observers said the government would be loath to see Booth resign his seat because, with the depressed state of the Major administration, a by-election could easily result in the Labor Party winning Thatcher’s old seat.