04 February,2011 12:53 PM IST | | Agencies
Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, has posed in a racy photograph that sees her naked under a sheet in her bedroom gazing provocatively.
That is followed by a candid magazine article where she has revealed how husband John's lavish grace-and-favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster has spiced up life between the sheets.
The interview and photograph -- taken in a hotel room opposite the Palace of Westminster -- appear in a 'Sex in the City' feature in the London Evening Standard's ES magazine today.
"I never realised how sexy I would find living under Big Ben with the bells chiming," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.
Claiming that she's seen as the 'Carla Bruni of British politics,'' the 41-year-old says that both she and her husband have been hit on by the opposite sex.
"The view from Speaker's House is incredibly sexy, particularly at night with the moon and the glow from the old gas lamps. When John and I were first courting we used to walk along the South Bank and look at the Houses of Parliament. I never realised then how sexy I would find living under Big Ben with the bells chiming," she told the magazine.
"Politicians as a breed aren't particularly sexy but I think politics can be sexy because power is an aphrodisiac. Since John became Speaker, the number of women who hit on him has gone up dramatically. I don't get jealous because more men have hit on me."
"I think it's hilarious and extremely flattering that I've been referred to as the Carla Bruni of British politics," she said.
One senior Tory said her interview and photo-shoot "brought Parliament into disrepute" and was likely to hasten efforts to remove her husband as Speaker.
"How much worse can it get? She is just deranged and vulgar and embarrassing. It is humiliating for British public life. It is so vulgar and tacky -- we just cannot put up with them any more. We have got to get rid of them," he said.
