Spitzer successor had affair in Manhattan hotel

It was the moment that dignity would be returned to state government. Eliot Spitzer, felled by his sex-for-cash improprieties, was no longer Governor of New York and David Paterson was taking the reins. A pity then that by yesterday we were hearing of new slap-and-tickle naughtiness – from Mr Paterson no less.

What aphrodisiacs are these folks taking? Mr Paterson, who is blind, sat down with reporters from the New York Daily News within hours of his swearing in to bare his soul. Yes, he said, his wife, Michelle, had gone through a bit of a bad patch and beginning in 1999 he had began his liaisons with a mistress in a Manhattan hotel that lasted two or three years.