DRUG STING ROCKS U.K. PARLIAMENT

Peer allegedly offered cocaine to reporter

LONDON (AP) - One of the youngest members of Britain's House of Lords was
suspended yesterday after allegedly trying to sell cocaine to an undercover
reporter in the corridors of Parliament.

Joseph Phillip Sebastian Yorke, the 10th Lord Hardwicke, could face
expulsion from the Conservative party.

The move follows a report in the tabloid News of the World on Sunday that
the lord tried to sell cocaine to one of its undercover reporters last week
when members of the House were recalled to debate stricter security
legislation after a fatal bombing in Northern Ireland.

Yorke, 27, runs a motor scooter shop and admits he only shows up at the
House of Lords twice a week to collect his $330 in attendance fees.

He said he was "shocked and distressed" by the scandal.

"These articles are serious distortions, and it is my intention to correct
them and address them at the appropriate time and place," he said in a
statement issued by his lawyers.

The Times yesterday quoted an unidentified senior Tory source as saying
Lord Cranborne, the party's leader in the House of Lords, gave Yorke "a
chance to defend himself and clear his name.

"You can take it that he hasn't justified his position at all and such
behaviour will not be tolerated," the Times quoted the source as saying.

'LORD SCOOTY'

The matter will likely be referred to the party's ethics and integrity
committee.

Set up to counter allegations of sleaze, it has the power to expel Yorke
from the party.

Yorke, known to his friends as "Lord Scooty," was just three when he
inherited the peerage from his grandfather, his father having died the year
before.

News reports said he only agreed to take his seat in the House of Lords at
the request of his cousin, Lord Hesketh, a former Tory chief whip.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan