Weather forecaster Sian Lloyd's A Funny Kind Of Love: My Story amounts to an extraordinary attack on her ex-lover and Lib Dem MP, Lembit Opik.

The pair were engaged for two years (2004-6) before she ended their relationship. He is now threatening to sue over her claims about his drinking.

But in an interview Sian claims she was as much concerned about Lembit as the unhealthy lifestyle of backbench MPs.

"I had to write about the dysfunctional relationship I had with Lembit," says Sian. "It takes up a third of the book.

"All my other relationships had been partnerships. But with Lembit, I was here and he was there. We didn't share all the details of our lives.

"We were attracted to each other as opposites. I am conventional, he is monstrously unconventional. Our relationship was compulsive."

Sian reveals that she fell for Lembit Opik at their second meeting.

He was then the Liberal Democrat Shadow Welsh and Northern Ireland Secretary. In his chat-up he said that Earth would be hit by an asteroid one day and that most of humanity would be wiped out.

"Quite possibly this was when he had me," she recalls, adding, "I love men with passions." It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry over this book.

Lembit told Lloyd that psychic powers ran in his family. "You mark my words, I'll end up at No 10," he predicted.

"Not in the Lib Dems, you won't, matey," Lloyd thought at the time, as she reveals in her memoirs.

Will her book damage his political career? "No," she says now. Then she adds ominously as a forecaster herself: "Other things will affect his career."


Lloyd has been left with a concerned view of backbench MPs as a result of her time with Lembit Opik.

"Among backbench MPs, with no chance of holding power, drinking is a big problem," she says. "In their constituencies, they're treated as demi-gods with egos to match. What these MPs need is pastoral care.

"The Lib Dems need to take greater responsibility of their MPs."

In her memoirs Lloyd reminds us: "In 1993, I won the Presenter's Award at the International Weather Forecasters' Festival."

She is our foremost weather forecaster. Now she is married to motor racing entrepreneur Jonathan Ashman - and well on her way to putting her life with Lembit Opik behind her.

A Funny Kind Of Love: My Story by Sian Lloyd, published by John Blake, £17.99.