And You Thought Those Royals Were Naughty ...

"Time to get back to basics," said Britain's Prime Minister John Major four months ago at the Conservative Party annual conference. But some of his fellow Tories weren't listening to Major's pitch for family values. Only last week, Conservative M.P. Stephen Milligan was found dead in his apartment. He was wearing women's stockings and a garter belt and had a plastic bag over his head and an orange in his mouth. (Scotland Yard believes Milligan's death may have been due to self-strangulation while indulging in a solitary sexual practice.) Some other recent Tory peccadilloes:

The Earl of Caithness, Transport Minister, resigns his post just before his in-laws reveal the reason for his wife's recent suicide: his affair with former secretary to Princess Anne, Jan Fitzalan-Howard.

The wife of Conservative M.P. David Ashby announces that he has left her for another man. Ashby admits to "sharing beds with dozens of men" but not for the purposes of having homosexual relationships. Rather, he places the impetus on the accommodations in "bloody French hotels."

Environment Minister Tim Yeo resigns after admitting to being the father of a five-month-old "love child" (Fleet Street's formulation, not his own) born to his mistress, a north London Conservative Party worker.