I suspect that there’ll be a few MPs and peers nervously waiting for 9pm on Thursday night. For this is when the Panorama special on parliament and lobbying, which has already caused Patrick Mercer to resign the Tory whip, will be broadcast.
Today’s Telegraph contains details of the accusations surrounding Mercer. The paper alleges that the MP has been paid £4,000 by a fake lobbying company set up by the Telegraph and the production company making Panorama. Mercer appears not to have declared this money. But he has asked a string of questions on Fiji; the paper claims that the company had told him that ending Fiji’s suspension from the Commonwealth was a priority for its clients. The paper says that Mercer declined to answer a series of questions on the matter.
Prior to this incident, Mercer was best known in political terms for his criticisms of David Cameron. But today’s front pages with their talk of ‘Tory sleaze’ are a reminder that this episode can still cause problems for Cameron despite the deep antipathy between the two men. It’ll lead to a whole string of calls for a lobbying register, something that the coalition had quietly dropped. It’ll also prompt a lot more attention on just how many people who used to work in Cameron’s Number 10 are now linked to lobbying firms. Then, there’s the whole issue of why the coalition has not proceeded with plans to allow voters to recall their MPs.
The biggest threat to Cameron, though, is a by-election which Ukip could win. Given that Mercer has resigned the Tory whip and already declared that he won’t stand again, I suspect he’ll be able to resist calls for him to resign and prompt a by-election. But if he can’t, then Ukip will have a golden opportunity to win a previously safe Tory seat and cause all sorts of jitters inside Cameron’s party.
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