Former Prime Minister John Major today spoke of his regret after his Conservative Party colleague Mrs Edwina Currie disclosed details of their four-year affair.
The affair, which began when he was a Government whip and she was a backbencher, ended in 1988, shortly after Mr Major joined Mrs Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet as chief secretary.
Mr Major, who became Prime Minister in 1990, confirmed the affair to The Times, which is serialising Mrs Currie's diaries containing the disclosure.
"It is the one event in my life of which I am most ashamed and I have long feared it would be made public," he told the newspaper.
His wife, Norma, whom he married in 1970, had known of the affair for "many years" and had forgiven him, he added.
Mrs Currie, who now presents her own weekend programme on BBC Radio 5 Live, is currently enjoying a three week holiday and will not present the chat show this weekend, the BBC also confirmed.
The former Tory MP, who disclosed the affair in The Timesthis morning, will be away from work for the next three weekends.
A BBC spokesman said: "She has booked three weeks holiday, this is the first weekend of that holiday. We have not been informed where she has gone."
Mr Major's Cabinet was badly damaged by a string of sexual scandals involving ministers after his call for a return to traditional values, the so-called Back to Basics policy.
Mrs Currie said in an interview with The Timesthat she thought the campaign, launched in 1993, was "absolute humbug".
PA