I took on sleazy Tory Neil Hamilton and won, writes MARTIN BELL

I took on sleazy Tory Neil Hamilton and won, writes MARTIN BELL
I took on sleazy Tory Neil Hamilton and won, writes MARTIN BELL

Do you remember Neil Hamilton? I certainly do. And his wife, the self-styled battle-axe Christine? I remember her too, perhaps even more vividly. Neil was the MP for Tatton in Cheshire, one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, from 1983 to 1997, when he lost it over a ‘sleaze’ scandal, after allegations he had been bribed to ask questions in Parliament on behalf of a business tycoon.

I played a part in that political downfall, standing as an independent ‘anti-corruption’ MP and turning Hamilton’s majority of 22,000 into a majority against him of more than 11,000.

The people had spoken, decisively. I met no one who regretted that vote.

In the course of the contest, Hamilton described me as ‘a nice enough man but totally unsuited to politics’. He changed his mind about the first part of that, but was probably right about the second.

In my other life as a TV war reporter, I had encountered ambushes from Biafra to Bosnia – but nothing like the one on Knutsford Heath, when the Hamiltons confronted me (wearing my trademark white suit) before the Press demanding, among other things, whether I ‘accepted that he was innocent’.

All of this came flooding back to me, as if in a dream, on Wednesday this week, when I watched the majority of Conservative MPs blocking the disciplinary action against one of their number, Owen Paterson.

The move scandalised the Commons and the country – and one rebellious Tory MP called it ‘a dark day for democracy’.

Disgraced Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, left, who was caught in Tory sleaze allegations in the 1990s after accepting cash for questions, was beaten in the 1997 by former BBC journalist Martin Bell, right, who ran on an anti-sleaze platform

Disgraced Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, left, who was caught in Tory sleaze allegations in the 1990s after accepting cash for questions, was beaten in the 1997 by former BBC journalist Martin Bell, right, who ran on an anti-sleaze platform

In my other life as a TV war reporter, I had encountered ambushes from Biafra to Bosnia – but nothing like the one on Knutsford Heath, when the Hamiltons confronted me (wearing my trademark white suit) before the Press demanding, among other things, whether I ‘accepted that he was innocent’

In my other life as a TV war reporter, I had encountered ambushes from Biafra to Bosnia – but nothing like the one on Knutsford Heath, when the Hamiltons confronted me (wearing my trademark white suit) before the Press demanding, among other things, whether I ‘accepted that he was innocent’

The Honourable Member for North Shropshire was facing suspension from Parliament for 30 working days. The charge against him was that he had broken the rules on lobbying, pocketing large sums by taking parliamentary action on behalf of two companies paying him hundreds of thousands of pounds. He had gone through the due process, the initial charges being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone, then examined by the all-party Committee on Standards, which upheld them unanimously.

I used to sit on that committee. It had 11 members then who were supposed to park their party allegiances at the door and impartially examine the complaints before them. Some did so more than others.

One who did remain steadfastly neutral in the 1990s was Peter Bottomley, now Sir Peter and the Father of the House. Significantly, he was among the Tory rebels in the vote on Owen Paterson.

He had left the committee in 2003 because of the House’s ill-treatment of a previous Commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin, and was not going to change his practice now.

Elizabeth Filkin, like Kathryn Stone, had been much whispered-against. The campaign against her came more from Labour than Conservative MPs. One of them called her the ‘witchfinder-in-chief’. She was disgracefully let go after only three years in the post.

It was not a matter of party politics back then. There were many more Labour than Conservative Members, and those under investigation at the time included such prominent figures as Peter Mandelson and Keith Vaz (both Labour, of course).

Imagine the pressures on the Commissioner and the 11 MPs around that horseshoe-shaped table! Yet even when we

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