Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has spoken unusually frankly about his romantic past, admitting to sleeping with "no more than 30" women and revealing how he fell in love at first sight with wife Miriam.
In a no-holds-barred interview with magazine GQ, Mr Clegg recalled being "pretty gobsmacked" on first meeting the Spanish senator's daughter when they were both studying in Belgium.
After first wooing her in French, he learnt to speak Spanish for her sake, he said.
Pressed to reveal more, the Lib Dem leader said he had been in love twice before meeting his wife - once in an "unrequited" passion and once with a childhood sweetheart - but "definitely" regarded her as the love of his life.
And he went on to respond to a series of increasingly personal questions from interviewer Piers Morgan, who asked whether he saw himself as "good in bed".
"I don't think I am particularly brilliant or particularly bad," said the Lib Dem leader.
"Since the only judge of that is my wife..."
Mr Morgan insisted that there had been other women in his life and he replied: "Yes OK, well, not for a very long time."
When Morgan asked to know how many, Mr Clegg attempted to brush off the question by answering: "Not a list as long as yours, I'm sure".
But the interviewer would not be deflected, asking: "How many are we talking: 10, 20, 30?" "No more than 30," replied Mr Clegg.
"It's a lot less than that."
PM: "Ever had any complaints?"
NC: "Oh God yes, of course."
PM: "What would your wife say?"
NC: "I think she'd be very content and happy."
PM: "Would you ever be unfaithful to her?"
NC: "I certainly hope not."
Remembering his first meeting with Miriam, he said: "We were at the same college in Belgium. She was leaning against a wall outside an induction lecture, and that was that...
"I was pretty gobsmacked when I first saw her... Her English was rubbish and my Spanish non-existent. So we got by in French for a bit but then I learnt Spanish."
Mr Clegg is not the first politician to be subjected to a grilling on his personal life by GQ.
Former Conservative leader William Hague famously told the magazine in 2000 that he drank as many as 14 pints of beer a day while delivering drink to pubs in a student holiday job.
The Lib Dem leader was asked about his own alcohol intake, and said he did not drink every day and was last drunk "probably last summer... drinking wine with my family in France".
The alcoholism of his predecessor Charles Kennedy was "very difficult and unpleasant, for him and the party", said Mr Clegg, who said it would be "pretty hard" to run the country as an alcoholic.