Glasgow Cathcart by-election 2005

'Although two of them (stills from the CCTV footage) appear to feature me, I'm not doing anything wrong and the other two are inconclusive. I categorically deny any wrongdoing.' Labour peer and MSP, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, 13 th November 2004.

Political giants sent to prison

From the Sun 22 nd September 2005

LORD Watson is the latest in a long line of powerful politicians who have fallen foul of the law and ended up in prison.

The most infamous crook is Jeffrey Archer, 65.

The MP-turned-novelist won a libel case in 1987 when he was accused by a tabloid of having had sex with a prostitute. In 2000, eight years after being made a life peer by Margaret Thatcher, he was tried for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Two key witnesses who provided alibis in the original libel case admitted they had lied and Archer was jailed for four years in July 2001.

In July 2003, he was released on probation. Jonathan Aitken, 63, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury in John's Major's government He resigned in 1995 to take on a libel case against the Guardian newspaper, who accused him of he breaching ministerial rules by allowing an Arab businessman to pay for his stay in the Ritz Hotel in Paris. After claiming he would rely on "the simple sword of truth", the case collapsed in June 1997 after evidence proved he had been lying and had also asked his teenage daughter to lie under oath for him.

Aitken was then charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice and, in 1999, was jailed for 18 months.

The Labour MP and former Postmaster General John Stonehouse staged his own death to avoid fraud charges. In 1974, he left a pile of clothes on a Miami beach and obituaries were published.

He secretly moved to Australia with his mistress but was tracked down by police. In June 1975, he was jailed for seven years for fraud. He was freed in 1979 and died in 1988