Bureau Recommends: Lobbyists paid to facilitate Fox talks
What started as a small, yet intriguing story buried below the fold in the Guardian Business pages now threatens the position of the UK’s Defence Minister.
Guardian business writer, Rupert Neate first wrote about Liam Fox’s link to his unofficial adviser and former flatmate, Adam Werritty in August. Neate’s initial coup makes fascinating reading less than two months later. It showed that Werritty, an unofficial adviser to Dr Fox, brokered a meeting to discuss a legal dispute between a giant US company and a private equity firm linked to the MoD.
Now the potential conflict of interest story, in which there are also strong suggestions that the Ministerial Code may have been breached, is now the UK’s top news item and an unwelcome distraction for David Cameron.
According to the latest revelation in today’s Guardian, political lobbyists were paid thousands of pounds to help a Dubai-based businessman arrange a secret meeting with Dr. Fox. The defence secretary claims the meeting came about only after a chance meeting in a restaurant. But invoices seen by the Guardian show that private equity boss Harvey Boulter paid £10,000 a month to lobbying firm Tetra Strategy for help that included brokering the meeting with Fox through Adam Werritty, who claimed to be an ‘adviser to the Rt Hon Dr Fox MP’.
Timeline of developments in the Fox – Werritty story
On Sunday Fox admitted that it had been ‘wrong’ for him to meet Boulter, a commercial partner of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Dubai without any officials present. In a statement he said: ‘At no stage did I or my Department provide classified information or briefings to Mr. Werritty or assist with his commercial work – let alone benefit personally from his work.’
Over the week it has also emerged that Werritty, who has business interests in the defence industry, was present at a meeting with the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during an official visit to the country organised by the Foreign Office in June. Werritty is said to have attended a lecture given by Fox, but was not part of an official delegation.
Werritty, a former flat mate of Dr. Fox and the best man at his wedding, visited Fox at the MoD’s Whitehall headquarters 14 times in 16 months, although he is neither employed by the MoD nor the Conservative Party and does not have security clearance.
Fox insists no wrongdoing has taken place and David Cameron has said he has full confidence in his minister. Despite this, an investigation has been launched to establish whether Dr. Fox acted in breach of the ministerial code and if Werritty was able to profit financially from the meetings.
But, for now, this story looks set to run.
To read the story in full click here.
