The spy, the sex scandal and a faked suicide: the royal outcasts

Jojo Moyes on the shame of dismissal from the Queen's inner circle

The former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken is likely to be struck off the Privy Council, a fate previously suffered only by a convicted spy, a procurer of call girls and a man who faked his own death to avoid fraud charges.

Privy Council sources said yesterday that they were "examining the procedures" by which Mr Aitken could be removed from the Queen's inner circle of advisers. The sanction, which would involve stripping him of his title "Right Honourable", has not been employed for 75 years.

Last week Mr Aitken dropped his libel case against the Guardian newspaper and Granada Television after evidence emerged which proved he had lied under oath, and may have persuaded his teenage daughter to do the same. The decision to consider his position on the Privy Council is a clear indicator of the severity with which Mr Aitken's behaviour has been viewed in establishment circles.

The appointment is usually held for life and he would become only the second person this century to be struck off; the first being Sir Edgar Speyer, a financier, prominent philanthropist and friend of the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Sir Edgar's appointment, along with his naturalisation from American citizenship was revoked in 1921 after he was convicted of collaborating with the Germans during the First World War.

Only two other ministers have resigned from the council this century and the degree and enduring nature of their public disgrace will also serve as an uncomfortable reminder to Mr Aitken.

The actions of former Tory minister John Profumo, whose name became a byword for political sex scandals, led to an addition in Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, the parliamentarians' bible: "In 1963, the House resolved that, in making a personal statement which contained words which he later admitted not to be true, a former member had been guilty of a grave contempt." Mr Profumo, the war minister, had denied sleeping with Christine Keeler, a prostitute, but later admitted lying to the House.

The other, Labour MP John Stonehouse, became an equally fabled liar. Desperate for money and the love of his mistress, Sheila Buckley, he faked his own death to profit from insurance policies. His apparent suicide off Miami Beach was so convincing that it elicited thousands of messages of sympathy from the public and MPs held a minute's silence in the House of Commons. He began a new life in Australia but was discovered, brought back to Britain and jailed. The judge, Mr Justice Eveleigh, called him "a sophisticated and skilful confidence trickster''.

Only the Queen has the power to strip a Privy Counsellor of his office, which is granted for life, on the advice of the Privy Council itself. "We are looking at what the procedures are," a senior Privy Council source said yesterday.

Appointment to the largely ceremonial post is seen as a great honour. Sources said yesterday that Mr Aitken was likely to be given a "decent interval" of time to make up his mind whether to offer his resignation.