guardian.co.uk,
Rajeev Syal, Rupert Neate and Nicholas Watt, Wednesday 19 October 2011
 |
| Liam Fox attacked the media in his resignation speech. He will face a fresh inquiry into his links with Adam Werritty. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/ Getty Images Europe |
The Liam Fox affair has reached the Conservative party's high command for the first time
after it was confirmed that its leading fundraiser introduced donors to the
former defence secretary, who then introduced them to his best man, Adam
Werritty.
In a blow
to Downing Street's central tactic of distancing itself from Fox – saying that
he was operating in his own way – the Conservative party admitted that its
senior treasurer was the conduit for donors to the former defence secretary.
Howard
Leigh passed on the details of donors who wished to support Fox's campaign
during the 2005 Tory leadership contest. They were then persuaded by Fox to
give money to Werritty's not-for-profit company Pargav, according to a source,
and some of the money was spent visiting Fox on lavish trips abroad. Leigh was
one of party's treasurers at the time.
The
disclosure is an embarrassment for the Tories and will pose further difficult
questions for Fox, who has been told that he faces a parliamentary inquiry into
his behaviour and Werritty. In his resignation statement in the Commons, Fox
attacked the media for pursuing him.
"Last
week's media frenzy was not unprecedented, and it happens where a necessary
free press and politics collide," Fox said. "But I believe there was,
from some quarters, a personal vindictiveness, even hatred, that should worry
all of us."
A
Conservative spokesman confirmed Leigh's role in helping to introduce Fox to
the donors whose recent support was used by Werritty to fly around the world to
meet the former defence secretary.
The
spokesman told the Guardian: "Howard Leigh introduced donors to Liam Fox's
office during the 2005 leadership campaign. Some of them subsequently maintained
contact with Dr Fox's office. Mr Leigh had no knowledge of Pargav and has not
introduced donors to Dr Fox for some time."
A source
close to Leigh said: "Howard Leigh was as shocked as anybody to find that
donors' funds were being used to fund Adam Werritty's trips. There is no way
that he would have countenanced that."
Leigh is
now the senior treasurer of the party. He is understood to have met Werritty on
a number of occasions, but does not regard him as a friend. A party source says
the donors approached Leigh asking to donate money to Fox's campaign, not that
they were solicited by Leigh.
The Tory
spokesman declined to say which donors had been introduced to Fox by Leigh, and
did not expand on whether they knew of how their money had been spent by
Werritty. Backers of Pargav include Mick Davis, a South African-born mining
magnate known for his pro-Israel views; Tamares real estate, an investment
company owned by Poju Zabludowicz, the chief funder of Israeli pressure group
Bicom; and Michael Lewis, a former vice-president of Bicom, who donated £13,832
to Atlantic Bridge and £5,000 to Fox.
Davis,
Zabludowicz and Lewis would not comment on Wednesday on how their donations had
been solicited or what they believed the money was to be used for. However,
Lewis has stated he had no knowledge of how his donations to Fox's leadership
campaign were used.
A source
with knowledge of some of the donations said some initial contributions were
made to Fox's charity, Atlantic Bridge, and renewed in subsequent years without
close scrutiny of where the money was going. He said some of the donors were
also under the impression that the approaches had been approved by the
Conservative party. "I don't think it was core Tory party fundraising but
there were core Tory party fundraisers who were willing to support it."
Another
source said there had been no co-ordination between the Jewish donors to fund
Werritty, though some had initially felt well-disposed to help Fox because of
his pro-Israel position. Both Davis and Leigh serve on the Jewish Leadership
Council, a body with representatives from community and religious groups. Davis
has been chairman of the council's executive committee since 2009.
Leigh
chairs the elite Leaders' Group, which has more than 70 members who pay up to
£50,000 a year for the privilege of meetings with David Cameron. Tory insiders
say he has helped to bring in more than £2m a year through fundraising events,
according to reports.
He is the
managing director of Cavendish Corporate Finance, which helped Cameron's wife,
Samantha, collect a windfall following the £18m sale of Smythson, the
stationery and leather goods emporium company where she is creative dire ctor.
Leigh
passed the donors over to Fox in 2005. At the time, Fox was the leading
candidate of the party's right in the leadership campaign against Cameron and
David Davis. Tory sources claim Fox then maintained contact with the donors and
was responsible for passing them to Werritty, who then funnelled £150,000 to
Pargav.
The
parliamentary standards commissioner, John Lyon, announced that he would
investigate a complaint about the former defence secretary lodged by Labour MP
John Mann, after Mann asked him to examine allegations that Fox allowed
Werritty to live rent-free in his London flat, which allowed him to run a
business from a property funded by parliamentary allowances.
Fox
apologised to MPs after Sir Gus O'Donnell ruled that he was guilty of multiple
breaches of the ministerial code for a "blurring of lines" between
his official and private responsibilities. In a carefully constructed sentence,
Fox said: "The ministerial code has been found to be breached. For this I
am sorry."
Fox accused
the media for hounding his family and accepting "unquestioningly"
claims by Harvey Boulter, the Dubai-based businessman. "It is difficult to
operate in the modern environment, as we know, where every bit of information,
however irrelevant or immaterial, is sensationalised, and where opinions or
even accusations are treated as fact.
Boulter
rejected Fox's criticism. He said: "It is most certainly not fair or
correct for Fox to again brand me as a blackmailer. He knows very well that I
was trying to settle a legal dispute … this is a negotiation."
He added:
"If Fox had not issued an incorrect statement in the first place, which
the Guardian forced him to correct publicly, then he would not have exposed his
adviser to scrutiny."
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