Crunch time for Fox

“I don’t believe that wrongdoing did occur”, said Liam Fox in his apology yesterday. With today’s front pages dripping with accusations, Fox has some work to do to substatiate that claim.

The Guardian reveals that “Political lobbyists were paid thousands of pounds to help a Dubai-based businessman arrange a secretive meeting with Liam Fox”:

“an invoice, seen by the Guardian, shows that Boulter enlisted the services of a lobbying firm to help him skip layers of bureaucracy and meet Fox for an urgent meeting on the 41st floor of the hotel. The invoice shows Boulter paid Tetra Strategy £10,000 for “project fees”. It is understood that the fees covered fixing up media interviews and political lobbying. Emails seen by the Guardian show the boss of Tetra, Lee Petar, had been working to arrange a meeting between Boulter and Fox or Werritty since 25 March. This throws further doubt on Fox’s claim that the controversial encounter took place after a chance meeting between Werritty and Boulter over dinner in Dubai in April.”

The Times adds that Werritty “has a reputation among lobbyists as the “go-to guy” for gaining access to the Defence Secretary” – which is backed up by The Guardian’s story – and that “He maintained such a close relationship with Dr Fox that when he undertook “James Bond” style trips to Iran in the months before last year’s election, mutual friends assumed it was on behalf of the Defence Secretary”.

All of this begs the question how lobbyists and friends got this impression, if Werritty was “simply a friend”, as Fox claims.

And, as Fraser said last night, the Telegraph has details suggesting that Adam Werritty was once employed by Fox’s parliamentary office:

“financial records seen by The Daily Telegraph show an economic relationship between the two friends. The papers disclose that in 2005/06, Dr Fox’s Commons office budgeted for a £690 National Insurance payment relating to Mr Werritty’s employment. The payment suggests that he had been employed by Dr Fox in the previous year. At the time, Mr Werritty was the director of a company called UK Health. Since Mr Werritty has never been issued with a House of Commons security pass, the payment will raise questions about what work he was doing for the MP’s office.”

So not only did Fox’s best man hand out business cards describing him as a parlimentary adviser, but he was also seemingly paid by Fox’s parliamentary office – despite never being registered as a member of that office.

These new revelations are just the start of what could well be a make-or-break day for Fox. David Cameron will get the initial report of the civil service’s investigation into the affair, and Fox will be under intense scrutiny as he rises to answer defence questions in the Commons this afternoon.