Former journalist fired for making fake call to own talk show before entering politics, where he was a victim of phone-hacking
Denis MacShane, who has pleaded guilty to expenses fraud, was openly dismissive of the scandal when it first emerged, claiming it would be seen in the future as "a wonderful moment of British fiddling".
But after apparently shrugging off the growing outrage in 2009, he then found himself under investigation for fiddling expenses and ultimately was forced to quit as an MP.
MacShane announced his resignation in November last year after the committee on standards and privileges had recommended that he should be suspended as an MP for 12 months after it found he submitted 19 false invoices "plainly intended to deceive" parliament's expenses authority.
A multilingual Europhile, who served as Europe minister for three years under Tony Blair and worked for the BBC, he was a regular commentator in the media both at home and abroad.
But the sleaze watchdog's findings about his expenses were the latest in a number of issues - professional, political and personal - that made him the subject of the story as well.
Born in Glasgow in 1948, he was educated at Merton College, Oxford - and later in life earned a PhD at Birkbeck College in London - before spending eight years as a BBC reporter and presenter from 1969.
He was sacked from that job - for which he switched from using his Polish father's surname of Matyjaszek to his Irish mother's - over a call made under a false name to a talk show he worked on.
After a spell as president of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) he went into self-described foreign "exile" on the election of Margaret Thatcher's Tory government in 1979.
As policy director of the International Metalworkers' Federation in Geneva, he travelled the globe in support of pro-democracy unions and helping reform the movement.
His Polish background saw him pay particular attention to that country's Solidarity movement - his involvement with which led to him being arrested and briefly imprisoned.
That was the subject of the first of his several books, which also include a biography of French president François Mitterrand and another about unions in South Africa.
In 1992 he founded the European Policy Institute and was its director until 1994 - when he was elected as the MP for Rotherham in a byelection.
It was second time lucky for him, having contested Solihull in October 1974, and he had represented the South Yorkshire seat ever since.
An obvious candidate for the Foreign Office when Labour swept to power in 1997, he was a Commons aide to its ministers during the party's first term.
In 2001 he was made a junior minister, causing some diplomatic discomfort in 2002 when he described Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez as a "ranting, populist demagogue".
He was also criticised by British Muslims after telling them they must condemn terrorism more strongly in a speech a day after 27 people died in two bomb blasts in Istanbul, Turkey.
He toned down a speech in which he had planned to say they must choose between the "British way" of political dialogue, and Islamic terrorism.
Promoted to be minister for Europe in October 2002, he held the post until being removed from the government in 2005. There were suggestions at the time that his demise was related to his reported comments that Gordon Brown's five tests for British membership of the euro were a "red herring".
Made a privy counsellor in 2005, he became a UK delegate to both the Council of Europe and the Nato parliamentary assembly and went on to chair the inquiry panel of the all-party parliamentary group against anitsemitism - an issue he has continued to campaign on vocally.
Another issue on which he has spoken out is the phone-hacking scandal - and he received £32,500 in damages from News International over his own privacy being breached.
His then partner, writer Joan Smith, told the Leveson inquiry that her phone was also hacked six weeks after the MP's daughter died.
Clare Barnes, 24, whose mother was the newsreader Carol Barnes, was killed in a skydiving accident in Australia in 2004.. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.
Denis MacShane, who has pleaded guilty to expenses fraud, was openly dismissive of the scandal when it first emerged, claiming it would be seen in the future as "a wonderful moment of British fiddling".
But after apparently shrugging off the growing outrage in 2009, he then found himself under investigation for fiddling expenses and ultimately was forced to quit as an MP.
MacShane announced his resignation in November last year after the committee on standards and privileges had recommended that he should be suspended as an MP for 12 months after it found he submitted 19 false invoices "plainly intended to deceive" parliament's expenses authority.
A multilingual Europhile, who served as Europe minister for three years under Tony Blair and worked for the BBC, he was a regular commentator in the media both at home and abroad.
But the sleaze watchdog's findings about his expenses were the latest in a number of issues - professional, political and personal - that made him the subject of the story as well.
Born in Glasgow in 1948, he was educated at Merton College, Oxford - and later in life earned a PhD at Birkbeck College in London - before spending eight years as a BBC reporter and presenter from 1969.
He was sacked from that job - for which he switched from using his Polish father's surname of Matyjaszek to his Irish mother's - over a call made under a false name to a talk show he worked on.
After a spell as president of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) he went into self-described foreign "exile" on the election of Margaret Thatcher's Tory government in 1979.
As policy director of the International Metalworkers' Federation in Geneva, he travelled the globe in support of pro-democracy unions and helping reform the movement.
His Polish background saw him pay particular attention to that country's Solidarity movement - his involvement with which led to him being arrested and briefly imprisoned.
That was the subject of the first of his several books, which also include a biography of French president François Mitterrand and another about unions in South Africa.
In 1992 he founded the European Policy Institute and was its director until 1994 - when he was elected as the MP for Rotherham in a byelection.
It was second time lucky for him, having contested Solihull in October 1974, and he had represented the South Yorkshire seat ever since.
An obvious candidate for the Foreign Office when Labour swept to power in 1997, he was a Commons aide to its ministers during the party's first term.
In 2001 he was made a junior minister, causing some diplomatic discomfort in 2002 when he described Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez as a "ranting, populist demagogue".
He was also criticised by British Muslims after telling them they must condemn terrorism more strongly in a speech a day after 27 people died in two bomb blasts in Istanbul, Turkey.
He toned down a speech in which he had planned to say they must choose between the "British way" of political dialogue, and Islamic terrorism.
Promoted to be minister for Europe in October 2002, he held the post until being removed from the government in 2005. There were suggestions at the time that his demise was related to his reported comments that Gordon Brown's five tests for British membership of the euro were a "red herring".
Made a privy counsellor in 2005, he became a UK delegate to both the Council of Europe and the Nato parliamentary assembly and went on to chair the inquiry panel of the all-party parliamentary group against anitsemitism - an issue he has continued to campaign on vocally.
Another issue on which he has spoken out is the phone-hacking scandal - and he received £32,500 in damages from News International over his own privacy being breached.
His then partner, writer Joan Smith, told the Leveson inquiry that her phone was also hacked six weeks after the MP's daughter died.
Clare Barnes, 24, whose mother was the newsreader Carol Barnes, was killed in a skydiving accident in Australia in 2004.. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.