BBC Presenter Laura Kuenssberg, whose book Pay Attention will be published next week, has suggested a male minister may have wanted a threesome with her and his partner
Laura Kuenssberg described meeting the minister in his hotel room (Image: BBC)
Laura Kuenssberg has suggested a male minister may have wanted a threesome with her and his partner.
The BBC presenter, whose book Pay Attention will be published next week, recounted a “very uncomfortable” encounter with an MP at a party conference.
She described meeting the minister in his hotel room where she expected to find him and an adviser, only to find him sprawled on the bed with his shirt undone by several buttons. His partner was also there. Ms Kuenssberg said she swiftly finished her drink and left.
Asked if she thought they were after a threesome, she told The Times: “Well, maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. As I say, maybe they weren’t and I got it completely wrong. It was very uncomfortable.”
Ms Kuenssberg – who was the BBC’s first woman political editor – said she has concerns about people’s behaviour in Westminster and worries about young people being “very vulnerable”.
“People do things,” she continued. “And human behaviour is a complicated thing and sometimes people behave badly. And the concern … there is still a concern in Westminster that particularly young people starting out are sometimes very vulnerable.
In her book, the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg presenter recalls several “weird” or “creepy” encounters with politicians. In one instance, she details how she cut off communications with a then-government minister, who was middle-aged and married, after they asked her to the theatre and one time dared “a little grope”.
And describing a former minister who kissed her on the head every time he saw her, she said: “That was just weird. I never felt threatened. But it’s just a strange thing to do.” Her book also recounts someone who sent her a “really creepy text” complimenting her clothes on TV.
“I’m not friends with politicians. There are lots of politicians who are perfectly nice people, but I don’t socialise with politicians,” she said.
Speaking about her decision to write a book, Ms Kuenssberg went on: “I suppose over a period of months thinking about whether or not I was going to write a book, having put it off for years and years and years, it sort of occurred to me that we were reaching a moment where I think I needed to come up for air and go, ‘OK, right. We had Brexit and the referendum. We’ve had social media emerging in incredible ways.
“You’ve had the phenomenon of Reform’s success exploding. You’ve had all of these different things that have been a big event for the country. And how can we sort of link them together? Are people really conscious of how we got to this place? And are people really conscious of the fact that politics is so different from what it was like when I started?’”
On her book, she added: “People will make of it what they will. I don’t know how people will react to it. I think for anybody writing a book for the first time, there’s a certain amount of trepidation.”
