Efforts by former Perthshire MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn to hide his private life from his constituents have been uncovered.
In newly revealed documents Sir Nicholas, who died in 1995, demands reporters be banned from investigating his private life and that of other politicians.
In the correspondence to the Commons standards watchdog which has been placed in the National Archives, the maverick MP called for press freedom to be “restricted”.
Fairbairn, who is the subject of child sexual abuse allegations in England and Scotland, claimed politicians should be protected from having their sexual behaviour exposed.
“Adultery and fornication have been the habit of most of humankind since Adam and Eve first committed the latter,” he wrote a few months before his death.
“Is there some ethical reason why those in public life should be holier than thou? Should they have the piety of monks and nuns?
“The House of Commons has already been diminished by the increasing habit of party organisations selecting candidates who are ‘squeaky clean’.”
The revelations come hard on the heels of an accusation by a woman who said Fairbairn raped her when she was four.
The Met are also investigating claims that Fairbairn had visited the notorious Elm Guest House in London in 1982.
The guest house hosted parties where vulnerable boys were sexually assaulted and is at the centre of an investigation by police entitled Operation Fairbank.
A number of famous names, including that of the later Liberal MP Cyril Smith, are believed to form a central part of the police inquiries.
Sir Nicholas also believed that his contribution as an MP was undervalued. In his letter unearthed in the National Archives he complains that politicians were being forced to live on low wages.
“I myself could make in a month, or even a week, from legal work what I am paid per annum in parliament,” he wrote.
“What sort of people could parliament attract, with all the glamour and glitz of their life, if the pay was a tidy quarter of a million?”