Sir Peter declined to comment about the affair, except to deny spending any public money on Miss Grundy. Unlike the squashed-in masses, however, the multi-millionaire enjoys free first class travel — a generous perk earned as a result of an earlier job as a London Transport manager.
A colourful character, Sir Peter once took the Tube to work wearing slippers and an elaborate oriental silk dressing gown to help raise money for Comic Relief.
And even though his father was a communist firebrand, his mother was the daughter of the 6th Baron Wynford. A Communist Party activist and leading member of the Electrical Trades Union, he was caught up in a ballot-rigging scandal and, although cleared by the courts, was banned for life from the union. He studied for a law degree at night school and became a barrister. Sir Peter has been keen to portray his career as a rags-to-riches rise from lowly London bus conductor to self-made millionaire and transport supremo.
He rose swiftly through the ranks and in the late s was appointed director of Centrewest, a subsidiary of the then state-owned London Buses.
Two major electrification schemes in the North and the Midlands would be halted, he said, while wider spending plans would be amended after running out of control.
