Lord Sewel may not have been a household name before his exploits were splashed over the pages of the Sun on Sunday but he held an important position in the House of Lords.
Aside from being deputy speaker he was chair of the Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee, in other words, he was in charge of upholding standards.
In a display of monumental hubris, he recently wrote a piece for the Huffington Post in which he talked about members being caught in sting operations by journalists and the more robust sanctions now in place. In particular, he will be haunted by one line from that article: ``Scandals make good headlines.''
Ten days later it was his scandalous behaviour which was making all the headlines after the peer was caught in a classic tabloid sting.
Video showed Lord Sewel allegedly snorting cocaine while entertaining prostitutes in his London flat, making racist and sexist comments and generally bringing the House of Lords into disrepute.
There will be enormous sympathy for his family but very little for a man who exercised such blatant double standards.
His foolish, arrogant and possibly criminal conduct delivers yet another blow to the reputation of politicians, still trying to recover from the expenses scandal which exposed the greedy and profligate behaviour of so many public figures.
Once again, the public will look at this man's activities and wonder at just how far removed the Westminster world is from the lives of ordinary working people.
Once again, the political world is scrambling to repair the damage, with the speaker of the Lords reporting the matter to the Metropolitan police as well as the commissioner for standards.
This raises the prospect of Baron Sewel being expelled from the Lords under rules drawn up by his committee.
He has resigned his posts and taken a leave of absence from the House but if he was to act on his ``personal honour'' then he would withdraw entirely.
