Australian Labour leader's strip club scandal

His youthful appearance, spectacles and blond quiff have earned him the nicknames Tintin and the Milky Bar Kid, but the man hoping to become Australia's next prime minister was shown to have an unexpectedly racy streak yesterday.

Confounding his image as a squeaky clean, church-going family man, Kevin Rudd was forced to admit that he paid a visit to a strip club during a boozy night out in New York in 2003.

The former diplomat was enticed into Scores, a Manhattan "gentlemen's club", while on a tax payer-funded official visit to the United Nations as shadow foreign minister.

He denied claims that he had been cautioned by the club's bouncers for touching the strippers and said he had telephoned his wife, Theresa, the next day to confess the indiscretion.

Mr Rudd, a committed Christian, has a strong lead in the polls and hopes to wrest power from John Howard, the long-serving prime minister, at a general election due by the end of the year.

He said he went to the club after having dinner with Col Allan, the editor of the New York Post, and Warren Snowdon, a Labour MP from the Northern Territory. "We can't actually recall anything that you wouldn't see in most pubs across Australia," Mr Rudd said.

"But that doesn't absolve me for going in that door in the first place. That's where I made the error of judgment, and it's something I shouldn't have done. It's an embarrassing thing to happen." He said he did not have a "completely clear recollection" of whether there were semi-naked women in the club or what they were doing.

He said he expected to "take a belting in the opinion polls" as a result of the revelation, which he suggested was leaked by Alexander Downer, the foreign minister.

But there were suggestions that far from damaging his standing, the incident would bolster his popularity.

Peter Beattie, the Labour premier of Queensland, said the episode showed that the opposition leader had some "blood in his veins".

That opinion was echoed by comments posted on newspaper websites. "Good on ya, Kevin - you have my vote for being human," wrote one man. Another reader commented: "So what?"

Not all contributors were so forgiving, however. "What type of example is he setting the children of Australia?" one woman asked.