As John Major avoided the media last night, his former lover went on the attack accusing him of double standards.

Edwina Currie issued a scathing assessment of Major's behaviour and his record as prime minister.

Currie accused him of behaving "atrociously" and described his ill-fated "back to basics" campaign as "evil".

The former health minister rejected Major's claim that he had ended their affair and denied she had decided to break her silence to make money.

"We didn't stop because we didn't stop caring about each other, or enjoying each other's company - we stopped because I thought it was time to stop," she told the BBC's Radio 5.

"I didn't want to - and I can tell you, he may say now he was ashamed of it, but he wasn't ashamed of it at the time and he wanted it to go on.

"I didn't want to, but it seemed to me that once he was in the Cabinet it was running far too many risks.

"It was running practical risks - I mean, we had the IRA chasing us around. For John to give his bodyguards the slip would have been to put him in a seriously dangerous situation."

She slammed his now-infamous "back to basics" speech at the Conservative Party conference, which focused on single parent mothers.

Currie described it as "the worst thing that ever happened" while he was PM.

"Governments should not start running morality campaigns. Governments are no better than the people that elect them and here we are in this country, we've the highest divorce rate in the world, the highest illegitimacy birth rate in the world, the highest rate of teenage pregnancy - we are no country to start chucking stones at each other and we should not expect our politicians to be any better," she said.

"I thought that was evil, really rotten, really cruel, and it was then open house on the way that his ministers had been behaving.''

There was particular venom over the alleged treatment of Downing Street caterer Clare Latimer which she described as "outrageous".

"I think that has put paid to any lingering regard or affection or admiration. He behaved in an atrocious fashion and it's a shame."

Currie added to her assault with criticism of Major's failure to bring her, or any other women, into his first cabinet.

"He had the opportunity when he formed government in December 1990 when he was elected to succeed Margaret Thatcher, he formed the first government for a quarter of a century that had absolutely no women in," she said.

"He ignored the women that supported him, that had helped him - not just myself, Emma Nicholson, Theresa Gorman and all the others - and then he had the nerve to stand at the dispatch box and say that he put people into that government on merit. I mean, if we'd had tomatoes in our hands ... we'd have pelted him with them."

She later described how their four-year affair began.

"It started because we were, I suppose, healthy, handsome people in very pressurised jobs," said Currie.

"I think what was happening was we were both going home to an empty flat. Sooner or later you start chatting and sharing confidences and, like you say, come home with me - and he did.''