When Liam Fox celebrated his 50th birthday, he invited friends – those who would be
likely to turn up for his 60th no matter what political fate befell him. Political allies fall away, ran his argument, but not friends. No one would have imagined that he’d be able to test this
theory within just three weeks.
On Monday, it looked more likely than not he would survive: he gave what seemed like a full apology and made full disclosure. The Tory tribe had rallied behind him.
It was embarrassing that his best man had turned up to share vodka martinis with him in various parts of the globe, but where was the wrongdoing? But, as we now know, that was not the whole story. There was a missing part, the saga of Adam Werritty and his unusual sources of finance.
I suspect that Fox just didn’t know the extent of it. But that’s no excuse. It was recklessness. While his friends will regard his resignation as a tragic was to end a promising political career, few will say that it had not become inevitable.
Fox was being blinded by friendship to the fact that his best man’s business model left both of them exposed to allegations of attempted corruption and improper influence. Fox is guilty of a huge number of errors, but chief amongst them was imagining that there is such a thing as a private visit to Sri Lanka. That, if Werritty was privately-financed, then the sources of these finance should not matter.
I’d be amazed if Fox is proven to have taken a corrupt penny, but his blind spot – one caused by friendship – has led to his downfall. On Monday, Fox said he had been guilty of excessive loyalty – and that was right. Mixed with a fatal dose of naivite.
Number 10 is keen to say it didn’t push Fox – from what I gather, even he thinks David Cameron has been as supportive as was possible. There is not even a suggestion that Number 10 helped stick the knife in.
In all the many things that have been said about Fox, no one has suggested he’s been a bad Defence Secretary. Or that he was trying to profit himself. As Matthew Parris says, many Cabinet members have a dangerous addiction to risk. He took the definition of friendship to a new, politically-suicidal degree.
There is a natural reflex to dance on political graves. God knows that Fox made bad misjudgments, and his failure to ask questions of Werritty’s sources of funding was fatally negligent. But for me, the bottom line is that the country has lost a good Defence Secretary – and for reasons unconnected to his professional conduct.
PS The wider theme behind all this can be found in James Forsyth’s brilliant cover story in this week’s Spectator about the influence of lobbyists.
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