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I draw the article ‘The Great Stink’ to ones attention. It appears that the smell has just moved from the Thames into Parliament itself – and given recent events there appears to be little sign that it is ebbing. Martin Frost
2006-05-04 Cash
for questions affair
The cash-for-questions affair was the one of the biggest political
scandals of the 1990s in the United Kingdom. It began in October 1994
when The Guardian newspaper alleged that London's most successful
parliamentary lobbyist, Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates, had bribed
two Conservative Members of Parliament in exchange for asking
parliamentary questions, and other tasks, on behalf of the
controversial Egyptian owner of Harrods department store, Mohamed
Al-Fayed.The Guardian's story alleged that Al-Fayed had approached the paper and accused Ian Greer of paying Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith to table parliamentary questions on his behalf at £2000 per question. Smith resigned immediately after admitting to accepting payments from Al-Fayed himself, but not from Ian Greer as The Guardian alleged. Hamilton and Greer immediately issued libel writs in the High Court against The Guardian to clear their names. The furore prompted Prime Minister John Major to instigate the Nolan Committee, to review the issue of standards in public life. Six weeks later in December 1994, in a private letter to the chairman of the Parliamentary watchdog the Members' Interests Committee, Mohamed Al-Fayed alleged that he too had paid Hamilton, in addition to the original allegations that Ian Greer was the paymaster. Hamilton denied this new allegation too. Two years later in the last days of September 1996, three days before Hamilton's and Greer's libel actions were due to start, three of Mohamed Al-Fayed's employees claimed that they had processed cash payments to the two men. Hamilton and Greer denied these new allegations. Three days later Hamilton and Greer settled their actions against The Guardian when a "conflict of interest" occurred between them. Hamilton's and Greer's withdrawal of their libel actions provoked an avalanche of condemnation of the two men in the British Press, led by The Guardian. Parliament immediately ordered a senior civil servant named Sir Gordon Downey to conduct an official inquiry into the affair. In December The Times reported the collapse of Ian Greer's lobbying company. In early 1997 Downey began his inquiry, but before he published his report Prime Minister John Major prorogued Parliament for a general election to be held on 1 May 1997. In the election former BBC reporter Martin Bell stood in Hamilton's Cheshire constituency of Tatton as an independent candidate on an "anti-corruption" platform. Bell defeated Hamilton with the assistance of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats who both withdrew their candidates and supplied party workers to help Bell's campaign. In early July 1997 Sir Gordon Downey published his report, clearing Ian Greer, Neil Hamilton, and Tim Smith of The Guardian's original allegations that Ian Greer had paid the two MPs to table questions. However, Downey decreed that the three Fayed employees' testimony that they had processed cash payments to Hamilton amounted to "compelling evidence", though he did not accept their claims to have processed cash payments to the lobbyist Greer. In 1998 Neil Hamilton issued a writ for libel against Mohamed al-Fayed, over allegations that Al-Fayed had made on a Channel Four documentary programme broadcast in January 1997. In late 1999 the trial began at the High Court. Hamilton lost and was ordered to pay costs. Two months later in February 2000 The Mail on Sunday reported that shortly before Hamilton's libel action Mohamed Al-Fayed had acquired reams of privileged legal papers stolen from the chambers of Hamilton's barristers. Hamilton immediately lodged an appeal against his libel defeat. In late 2000 Hamilton's appeal was heard at the Court of Appeal. The three judges dismissed Hamilton's appeal on the grounds that Fayed's acquisition of the stolen papers would not have materially affected the outcome of the trial. In 2001 Neil Hamilton declared bankruptcy. Committee on Standards in Public Life Martin Bell Neil Hamilton (politician) See also The Committee on Standards in Public Life is a Standing Committee of the British House of Commons. The committee was established in 1994 by Prime Minister John Major in response to concerns that conduct by some politicians was unethical - for example, allegations of taking cash for putting down parliamentary questions. The Committee's original terms of reference were: ‘To examine current concerns about standards of conduct of all holders of public office, including arrangements relating to financial and commercial activities, and make recommendations as to any changes in present arrangements which might be required to ensure the highest standards of propriety in public life.’ Public Office covers Ministers, civil servants and advisers; Members of Parliament and UK Members of the European Parliament; Members and senior officers of all non-departmental public bodies and of national health service bodies; non-ministerial office holders; members and other senior officers of other bodies discharging publicly-funded functions; and elected members and senior officers of local authorities’ In 1997 Tony Blair extended the Committee's terms of reference ‘To review issues in relation to the funding of political parties, and to make recommendations as to any changes in present arrangements’ The Committee on Standards in Public Life is constituted as a standing body with its members appointed for up to three years. Sir Alistair Graham succeeded Sir Nigel Wicks as Chair on 26 April 2004. Sir Nigel succeeded Lord Neill as Chairman on 1 March 2001 and Lord Neill succeeded Lord Nolan, the Committee's first Chairman, on 10 November 1997. Martin Bell, OBE, (born 31 August 1938) is a British former broadcast war reporter and independent politician. He is the son of author-farmer Adrian Bell, and the uncle of weblogger-banker Oliver Kamm, who served as his political adviser during his term as an MP). Bell was educated at The Leys School, Cambridge. He failed to obtain a commission during his two-year national service and served out his time as an acting corporal. BBC correspondent Independent politician Post "retirement" BBC correspondent Martin Bell joined the BBC as a reporter in Norwich in 1962 as a 24-year-old, following his graduation from King's College, Cambridge with a first-class honours degree. He moved to London three years later, beginning a distinguished career as a foreign affairs correspondent with his first assignment in Ghana. Over the next 30 years, he covered 11 conflicts and reported from 80 countries, making his name with coverage of the war in Vietnam, and also covering wars in the Middle East, Nigeria, Angola and Rwanda, as well as making many reports on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He won the Royal Television Society's Reporter of the Year award in 1977 and 1993, and was awarded the OBE in 1992. While covering the war in Bosnia he was seriously wounded by shrapnel while recording a report. From his long experience, Bell came to believe that the tradition of neutral reporting of armed conflicts did a disservice to the viewers where it was clear that one side was committing atrocities, and wrote a book outlining his belief. He remained an official BBC correspondent, although from the mid-1990s he filed relatively few reports. Independent politician In 1997, just 24 days before the British General Election, Martin Bell announced that he was leaving the BBC to stand as an independent candidate in the Tatton constituency in Cheshire. Tatton was one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, where the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament, Neil Hamilton, was embroiled in "sleaze" allegations. The Labour and Liberal Democrat parties withdrew their candidates in Bell's favour. Martin Bell was elected an MP with a majority of 11,000 votes – overturning a Conservative majority of over 20,000 – and thus became the first successful independent parliamentary candidate since the Second World War. Bell was noted as an extremely effective constituency MP. He did not often speak in the House of Commons, and when he did, it was mostly on matters of British policy in the former Yugoslavia and the Third World. He was initially supportive of the incoming Labour government of Tony Blair though on some issues, such as backing Section 28, he aligned himself with the Conservatives. He was urged by large numbers of his Tatton constituents to stand again in the 2001 General Election, but stuck by his promise that he would serve for one term only. In 2001, Martin Bell was nonetheless persuaded to stand as an independent candidate against the Conservative MP Eric Pickles in the "safe" Essex constituency of Brentwood and Ongar, where there were accusations that the local Conservative Association had been infiltrated by a Pentecostal church. However, he was not successful in the 2001 election, and announced his retirement from politics, saying that "winning one and losing one is not a bad record for an amateur". Post "retirement" Bell made a brief return to television news in 2003 when he provided analysis of the Iraq invasion for ITN's Channel Five News. The short films he compiled from the daily video footage brought a unique historical and humanitarian perspective to the events that was starkly in contrast to the sensationalist coverage of much of the mainstream media. Bell reversed his previous decision and stood for the European Parliament in the June 2004 elections, but was ultimately unsuccessful as an independent candidate in the UK's eastern region. For the 2005 election he founded the Independents Network to promote independent candidates (its most prominent candidate being Reg Keys in prime minister Tony Blair's Sedgefield constituency). Bell now acts as an ambassador for UNICEF and as a critic on the state of journalism today, although he describes himself as "too old" for both journalism and politics. In April 2006 Scottish Nationalist Party MP Angus MacNeil asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate whether any law had been broken in the Cash for Peerages scandal. Martin Bell wrote jointly with MacNeil to Prime Minister Tony Blair calling for all appointments to the House of Lords to be suspended. Mostyn Neil Hamilton (born March 9, 1949) is a former solicitor and Conservative MP in the United Kingdom. Since his fall from grace and subsequent bankruptcy, Hamilton and his wife Christine have become minor media celebrities. Political career Wins BBC libel case Monday Club Cash for Questions Crisis After the Crisis Political career In February 1974 Hamilton stood as the Conservative candidate in Aberystwyth, where he attended University in the late 1960's. In 1979 Hamilton unsuccessfully stood as a Parliamentary candidate in Bradford where in a selection speech and an election flyer he advocated "coloured" repatriation. He was elected to Parliament in 1983 as the MP for the Tatton constituency. He later served as Minister for De-Regulation from April 1992 onwards. Margaret Thatcher made him a whip in July 1990. Wins BBC libel case Neil Hamilton and Gerald Howarth, successfully sued the BBC for libel in October 1986 after a Panaroma programme, "Maggie's Militant Tendency", broadcast January 30, 1984, stated that the MPs had links with far-right groups in Europe and in the UK. The case, financed by Sir James Goldsmith, succeeded when the BBC withdrew, and the plantiffs were awarded damages £20,000 each. The BBC also had to pay the pair's legal costs. The programme had alleged (not admitted as evidence in court, but Hamilton effectively confessed in The Sunday Times), that he gave a Nazi salute in Berlin while 'messing around' on a Parliamentary visit in August 1983. Monday Club He was for some years a member of the staunchly right-wing Conservative Monday Club, and was one of those elected to its Executive Council as far back as 1972. Although he lapsed after his election as an M.P., he continued his support for the Club and hosted a large reception for them in Westminster Hall in January 1992. Because of his Monday Club connections Hamilton was friendly with Gregory Lauder-Frost, who was also Secretary-General of the International Monarchist League, and hosted a Summer Reception for the League in Westminster Hall on 17 July 1990. Cash for Questions Crisis On October 20, 1994 The Guardian published an article claiming that Hamilton, and another minister, Tim Smith, had received money, paid in the form of cash in brown envelopes, from Harrods' owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, for asking questions on his behalf in the House of Commons. The subsequent furore became known as the "Cash-for-questions affair". Tim Smith admitted his guilt and resigned immediately. Neil Hamilton claimed innocence but was eventually forced to resign his position as Corporate Affairs Minister. During the election of 1997, Hamilton, still claiming his innocence, was determined to hold onto his parliamentary seat in what was then one of the safest Conservative constituencies in the country. Conservative Central Office said that selection of candidates was purely a matter for the local party and refused to intervene. However what Hamilton's supporters labelled the 'left-wing media' gave constant and entirely negative publicity to Hamilton's case and badly undermined his position in the eyes of the general public. The media's interest in unseating the right-wing Hamilton appeared to be confirmed when the well-known BBC war correspondent Martin Bell decided to stand as an independent candidate in Hamilton's constituency, and the Labour and Liberal candidates stood down in order to give him a clear run against Hamilton. Martin Bell subsequently won the seat with a majority of over 11,000 votes. The media coverage surrounding Neil Hamilton along with other allegations of sleaze levelled at the Conservative Party, severely de-railed the Conservatives' election campaign and contributed to the worst defeat the Conservative Party had suffered for 150 years. Neil Hamilton took Mohamed Al-Fayed to court for libel in 1999, but he lost the trial after the 11 jurors determined he had corruptly taken payments from Mobil. He also lost the subsequent appeal. In 2001, unable to pay legal fees and costs amounting to some £3m, he was declared a bankrupt. He still has supporters, who believe him to have been unfairly treated by the media and the courts. Former Granada journalist Jonathan Boyd Hunt investigated the "Cash For Questions" affair, who declared in his book "Trial By Conspiracy," (ISBN 0473051230) that the case against Hamilton was untrue. The alleged conspiracy against Hamilton is also documented at Boyd Hunt's website, Guardian Lies. After the Crisis Hamilton's career took an unusual turn in 1997, beginning when he and Christine appeared on the current affairs satire quiz Have I Got News For You. Despite being the subject of numerous taunts about the scandal, including being given their "fee" in brown envelopes at the end of the show, the Hamiltons managed to come through the experience well. At one point Hamilton quipped, "I've found it's much better making political jokes than being one," and many felt that both Hamiltons had shown strong potential. Since then they have often appeared on chat shows and in other formats, including pantomime. In an appearance on a celebrity edition of Mastermind Hamilton described himself as now being "an object of professional curiosity." In August 2001 Neil and Christine Hamilton were arrested by police investigating an alleged rape, with an inevitable blaze of publicity. The investigation against them was dropped when it was discovered that the accusations were entirely false. In June 2003 their accuser, Nadine Milroy-Sloane, was gaoled for attempting to pervert the course of justice. In 2005 the publicist Max Clifford, who had acted for Milroy-Sloane, paid an undisclosed sum in damages to settle defamation proceedings brought by the Hamiltons. See also Cash for peerages: A Summary Cash for peerages – crisis deepens Ethos of Corruption Arthur Maundy Gregory: A Summary Victor Grayson Sidney Reilly Vernon Kell Basil Thompson Zinoviev Letter Crime Pays Lords Kaput Reforming the Lords Lord Levy - schmoozing Labour into trouble Sleaze and political corruption Bankrolling New Labour David Mills Berlusconi & Blair |
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