James Cleverly, Stockton North and Westminster's most memorable hot mic moments

The new home secretary has denied calling Stockton North a "shithole" and insisted he merely directed "unparliamentary" language at the local MP.

James Cleverly was accused of making a derogatory remark about the northeast constituency during Prime Minister's Questions this week, causing a political storm. 

But he was far from the first MP to be caught out by a so-called "hot mic". The Week takes a look at some of the more memorable cases in Westminster.

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Not so Cleverly?

In the Commons on Wednesday, Alex Cunningham, the Labour MP for Stockton North in County Durham, asked: "Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?" Cunningham claimed later that Cleverly "was seen and heard to say 'because it's a shithole'".

Cleverly's spokesperson initially denied he had made the comment, but "refused to elaborate on what he did say", allowing speculation to "gather pace", said The Times. 

Then a source close to the minister declared that the home secretary had actually said that Cunningham was a "shit" MP. "As was made clear yesterday, he would never criticise Stockton," the source told the BBC. "He's campaigned in Stockton and is clear that it is a great place."

Major's 'bastards'

Back in 1993, "after weeks of political infighting and Tory party sex scandals", the then prime minister John Major vented to an ITN reporter who had just interviewed him, recalled Time. Still on microphone, Major described several members of his cabinet as "bastards" that he would happily "crucify".

Turning to the sex sagas, he admitted that he couldn't "stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not" and even wondered aloud "how such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything". He lost the next general election by a landslide.

Brown's 'bigot'

In 2010, just a week before the nation went to the polls, the prime minister Gordon Brown visited Labour supporters in Rochdale. Gillian Duffy, a 65-year-old pensioner, grilled Brown live on TV, questioning his record on immigration.

Afterwards, not realising that he was still wired up to a Sky News microphone, Brown described her as a "bigoted woman". The recording was later played to Brown during a media interview, and he put his head in his hands to create "what proved to be the defining image of his campaign", said The Spectator. He lost the election to David Cameron.

Cameron's compendium

But Cameron has been caught out himself on several occasions. Following Scotland's independence referendum in 2014, a news camera microphone recorded Cameron, then PM, telling the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg that the Queen had "purred" down the phone to him following the result. This broke the convention that conversations between PM and monarch should remain private.

Later, a "lingering microphone" caught his comment to the Queen that the leaders of "fantastically corrupt" Afghanistan and Nigeria would be attending his anti-corruption summit, remembered Politics.co.uk. 

He was also "tripped up by an unexpected mic" when he made an "untimely joke" that Yorkshire folk "hate each other", said The Telegraph, and was recorded casually humming a tune after announcing in Downing Street in 2016 that he would be stepping down as PM.

Keegan's F-bomb

In September, Gillian Keegan was caught swearing on camera during an interview about the school concrete crisis. The education secretary was recorded asking an ITV journalist: "Does anyone ever say: 'You know what, you've done a fucking good job, because everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing?’ No signs of that, no?"

Keegan later apologised for the outburst, describing her comments as "off the cuff" and "unnecessary". It was "a moment reminiscent of an episode of 'The Thick Of It'", said The Telegraph.