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No, I do not think they will give him a peerage. His career as a town councillor in his local area in New Forest, West had lasted less than nine months from beginning to end. This fiasco followed hard on the heels of an even shorter dalliance as a trustee of an educational charity—the Vocational Training Charitable Trust—to whose board he had been formally elected at an annual general meeting on 4 October 2005. Such was his disruptive behaviour that, after attending only two meetings, he was twice asked to resign by the other trustees. He did so on 6 December, only two months later. [Hon. Members: "More! More!"] I must ask colleagues to restrain themselves, as I need to get through my speech in the time allowed. All this shows a consistent pattern of deviousness and disruption. Normally, one would simply write Scriven off as a malevolent failure and put one's faith in the good sense of the voters when the election is called. However, this brings me back to where I began, for Terry Scriven has finally had a success. He has managed to get the News of the World to publish a story falsely accusing me of hardly ever "visiting", as it puts it, the home in my constituency where I have lived continuously for the past 11 years when I am not at Westminster. My genuine neighbours state, correctly, that I am constantly using my home, yet unnamed people, described as "neighbours" and "locals", supposedly told the newspaper that I am "HARDLY THERE"—the quote is all in capitals—enabling it to denounce me for claiming my parliamentary allowance on my London flat, which I am perfectly entitled to do. The newspaper's story contained one factual item: the date on which I changed my main home designation from my flat in London to my house in my constituency. That had never been published before, but it had been disclosed by the House of Commons to Terry Scriven and to nobody else on 11 July 2008, at the same time as his freedom of information request for my home address in London was rightly rejected. As Mr. Scriven never responds to any questions that I put to him, other than to accuse me of trying to "intimidate" him by asking them, I had my solicitor write to him on 12 March pointing out that it appeared that""the internal evidence in this false"—" News of the World—""story demonstrates that you were the initiator of it"." The letter gave him""the opportunity (i) to deny any role in the concoction of the News of the World report and (ii) to explain how else the newspaper could have obtained knowledge of the change of designation in June 2004, which was disclosed by the House of Commons only to you"." It concluded as follows:""Our client intends presently to mention these matters publicly"—" I am doing that tonight—""and is offering you this chance to put forward your explanation of events, before he proceeds...Our client's questions are, of course, not intended in any way to intimidate you but are designed to provide you with a full opportunity to respond and to correct any alleged inaccuracies of fact before he comments publicly about your behaviour....If we do not hear from you by 25 March 2009 our client will proceed as indicated, and people will be able to draw their own conclusions from your continued and persistent silence"." Mr. Scriven replied on 20 March stating that he had""previously informed Dr Lewis on a number of occasions, in writing, that I find his actions intimidating...I will place this latest letter with a growing pile of other letters, emails and a message left on my answer phone which I have received from Dr Lewis over a period of almost nine months"." What Scriven did not do in this letter was to deny for one moment that he had indeed been the initiator of the News of the World smear. As my solicitor has now informed him, the only reason that a "pile of other letters" exists has been his own behaviour towards me and my staff, and his constant evasion of all questions put to him about it. I have little doubt that at some point during the next general election campaign Mr. Scriven will seek to distribute, perhaps unattributably, and perhaps with its date removed in order to make it look current, large numbers of copies of the News of the World smear story against me—that is, assuming that decent Liberal Democrats who, unlike Terry Scriven, actually live in the New Forest, East constituency, have not finally realised that they made a disastrous mistake in selecting as their candidate someone whose behaviour makes him unfit for any elected position in public life. My only defence against the covert tactics of this man is to bring them out into the open in the hope of inoculating the community against their intended effects. I have given him numerous opportunities to explain and justify his conduct, and his only response has been to claim to feel intimidated by me—that is the classic refrain of the bully when an intended victim actually stands up to him. What can we expect next? Will it be a press smear against Sir Neil Thorne or the armed forces parliamentary scheme, or just another smear against me, as a shadow Defence Minister, for daring to spend so much time with the military? Can we expect a demand for the abolition of parliamentary privilege, so that hon. Members cannot rebut scurrilous critics such as Mr. Scriven? Actually—I am not making this up—he has tried that one already. Perhaps we can expect a police raid on my home, because Terry Scriven feels "intimidated" by my asking him to confirm or deny his role in the News of the World smear? I began by discussing Scriven's preposterous letter to my party leader, which, typically, was labelled "In Confidence", so that I should not see his latest attempt to disparage me. It revealed that Terry Scriven expects the director general of MI5 and the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service to tell him if I have ever been involved with either organisation. Perhaps he does not realise that, just as people who work with or for such bodies have a lifelong obligation of confidentiality towards them, the reverse is also true. I can only apologise to them, to the chief constable of Hampshire, to Sir Neil Thorne, and to everyone else whose valuable time is being wasted by intrusive and inappropriate correspondence from this person, who likes to describe himself as the "prospective Member of Parliament" for my constituency. [Hon. Members: "Never!"] I am glad that my hon. Friends say, "Never." This is a calculated effort to blacken my reputation in the eyes of my constituents. Thanks to the internet I have been able to respond quickly to the smears of the News of the World and to post the full documentation about Terry Scriven's antics in a special section of my website so people can read them and make up their own minds. Despite the co-operation of a certain sort of journalist, I do not think that Mr. Scriven will succeed in the end, but as he has to some extent poisoned the politics of New Forest, East, I thank the House for this opportunity to expose his behaviour and to set it on the record—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"]