Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten's late night drinking sessions with MPs

John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, recently joined the star-studded cast of Jesus Christ Superstar.

As the foul-mouthed singer of The Sex Pistols, he was the scourge of the Establishment.

But shortly before he became punk's most notorious star, Johnny Rotten attended late-night drinking sessions at the House of Commons - and witnessed MPs mingling with 'working girls'.

Accompanying the singer to parties at the Palace of Westminster was his friend Linda Ashby.

The star - now 58 and known by his real name John Lydon - says in his new autobiography that MPs and escorts would go off with each other at the end of the evening.

Most sensationally, he recalls how Ashby introduced him to Jeremy Thorpe, the then leader of the Liberal Party. According to Lydon, it was just two months before he and Thorpe became Britain's most notorious figures, placing the meeting in 1976.

Thorpe was forced to resign on May 9 that year when he found himself at the centre of an explosive sex scandal.

In his book, to be published on Thursday, Lydon writes: 'There was a late-night drinking thing in Parliament and she [Linda] had access to it, so she took me and a couple of other people. A few pennies a pint - outrageous, brilliant, what a great place to drink!'

He adds: 'There we were, looking out at the Thames under a brolly, the Houses of Parliament overshadowing us, surrounded by all of these MPs who all day seem to squabble and hate each other, but there they were, discussing who is going with what escort.'

Lydon had yet to become a household name as Rotten and he thinks many of the assembled MPs would have mistaken him for a male escort. He says: 'I suppose they thought I was a male prostitute, with a slightly different way of dressing.

'I certainly wasn't what Jeremy Thorpe might've been looking for.'

There is no suggestion in the book that Thorpe himself enjoyed the company of escorts at the Commons.

The MP was alleged to have had an affair with his friend Norman Scott in the early 1960s at a time when homosexuality was illegal. He was subsequently accused of being part of a conspiracy to have Scott murdered. Thorpe and three other defendants were acquitted at the Old Bailey in 1979.

Lydon writes touchingly about his friendship with Ashby. They shared a flat close to Buckingham Palace and he says: 'I loved her to pieces. We had no relationship of any kind, other than equal nutters, I suppose. She was a working girl, basically.'

Neither Lydon nor Ashby were available for comment.

- Daily Mail