Jacqui Smith has told how she turned to dating apps after she was left "completely robbed" by her unfaithful husband.

The first female home secretary described the end of her political career as nothing compared to the devastation of losing her 33-year marriage to Richard Timney, who told her he wanted 'something new' in his life.

Ms Smith, 60, tried marriage counselling to iron things out, before the pair eventually called it quits in 2018.

The former Labour MP - who was a scalp of the expenses scandal - admitted she has since used apps to get back on the dating scene, and enjoyed the 'crazy' return to the schoolgirl dilemmas of when to kiss her new crush.

Ms Smith, who appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2020, said sleeping with someone new for the first time in three decades was as nerve-wracking as performing on the BBC show - though thankfully with less viewers.

Asked whether the end of her political career or marriage was worse on the How to be 60 podcast, Ms Smith said: "The marriage was.

"I suppose it's because I always knew my political career would come to an end, my seat was quite marginal.

"Whereas I thought my marriage was going to last forever - I thought we were going to be next to each other's death beds, that's what my picture of our life was.

"I just took it for granted.

"I thought that's what happened, you got married to somebody and then you were with them.

"I'm not 'tradwife', but my view of marriage was 'it's lovely, we depend on each other and we're going to be around forever'.

"I'd been married over 30 years and I thought we'd grow old together.

"I felt completely robbed by the fact he was unfaithful and then turned around and said 'I feel I need something new for the next 30 years of my life'.

"That wasn't how I had seen my life panning out at all, so that was a massive change for me.

"So, I've had to rebuild what my 60s will be like."

On the eventual divorce, which they have done without lawyers, she added: "I've moved on, I've got a new partner, it's great, but it will still be a big moment when I'm not married anymore."

Having tried to make the marriage work over several years with marriage counselling after learning of her husband's wish to divorce, Ms Smith eventually got back on the dating scene.

On her return, she said: "It was fun, it was crazy. I used apps.

"It's very, very different to the first time round, in other ways it's very similar - when am I going to kiss them and all of that sort of stuff."

Ms Smith revealed there were nerves as things progressed until she slept with someone new.

"It was fine, it was more than fine," the mother of two continued.

"If you've slept with the same person for 33 years, you are stricken with this, supposing I've been doing it wrong all these years, supposing there's something else I should be doing.

"Too much information, but one of the nice things my husband did was say 'you're very good at sex, don't worry about that'.

"So, I thought to myself, how the hell does he know? Well, he did know because he'd been off with someone else.

"That, and Strictly, equally nerve-racking but not quite so many people watching the first one."