'Porn and me': Smith opens up about expenses
Tuesday, 22 February 2011 12:00 AM
By politics.co.uk staff
Jacqui Smith has opted to tackle the issue of pornography head-on after it came to become strongly associated with her time in the Home Office.
The former home secretary prompted outrage and bemusement when she filed an expenses claim for a porn film watched by her husband.
But she now intends to tackle the issue head-on with a Radio 5 Live documentary and spoke openly about the experience to the Radio Times.
"[I] know that it was my expenses people looked at first because I was a woman and should have been at home looking after my husband and children," she said.
"I was more frozen than angry. I just couldn't believe that we - both of us - had put in this claim.
"I was the one who did the wrong thing. For claiming it. For not going through the expense form closely enough."
The ensuing media storm all-but ended her front bench career and left her husband "devastated", she said.
"Really. Deeply affected. By what it did to me and the family."
But the former home secretary remained loyal to him. "I couldn't have done the job without Richard to pick the boys up when they were sick, make them do their homework and piano practice," she said.
Ms Smith, who posed for the photo shoot wearing a mac in the strip tease area of Soho, rejected rumours that the film had actually been watched by her 17-year-old son.
"It isn't true. That is the thing I hate the most," she said.
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