How Mohamed Al Fayed left an enduring legacy on British politics with the ‘money for questions’ scandal

Mohamed Al Fayed and “cash for questions” most likely did extra to deliver in regards to the downfall of John Major’s authorities than any of the opposite political scandals of the Nineteen Nineties.

It was Al Fayed’s bribery of Tory MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith – in money stuffed in brown envelopes – and hospitality at his luxurious Ritz Hotel in Paris for cupboard minister Jonathan Aitken that led to the phrase “sleaze” being related to the Major authorities.

It was nearly definitely extra damaging than the a number of intercourse scandals that engulfed Major’s authorities within the ’90s, as a result of it concerned monetary impropriety and corruption and projected a picture of dishonesty and Tory MPs on the take.

Hamilton was the Thatcherite MP for Tatton within the Cheshire stockbroker belt – a seat later represented by Tory chancellor George Osborne – and was made a junior minister on the Department of Trade and Industry, chargeable for the City and company affairs, by Major after his shock basic election victory in 1992.

But two years later, in 1994, it was revealed that he had taken money for asking parliamentary questions on behalf of Al Fayed, together with Smith, who had been MP for Beaconsfield since defeating Tony Blair in a by-election in 1982.

Both MPs had didn’t declare the donations from the Harrods tycoon.

It was to value them their political careers and rob the Conservatives of certainly one of their most secure seats, Tatton, within the Blair landslide victory in 1997.

Al Fayed claimed he paid Hamilton as much as £110,000 and likewise gave him Harrods present vouchers and a free vacation at his Ritz Hotel in Paris, in return for asking parliamentary questions on Harrods throughout his battle for management of the shop with Lonrho tycoon Tiny Rowland.

Smith – additionally a junior minister – was mentioned to have obtained between £18,000 and £25,000, handed over in brown envelopes filled with £50 notes.

He stop right away, however Hamilton battled on in a futile bid to clear his identify.

Aitken, Major’s chief secretary to the Treasury and a former defence procurement minister, was revealed to have stayed with out cost on the Ritz in Paris similtaneously Saudi arms sellers.

He sued for libel however was later convicted of perjury and served a jail time period.

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Smith stood down from parliament in 1997 however Hamilton tried to cling on in Tatton, however was comprehensively defeated by the so-called “man in the white suit”, anti-sleaze candidate Martin Bell, who was backed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The massively damaging scandal led Major to arrange the Committee for Standards in Public Life, which continues to be working, although criticised at occasions for being toothless.

But regardless of its critics, the committee stays an enduring legacy of the cash-for-questions scandal and advises prime ministers, civil servants and parliament to at the present time.

And the committee’s best-known former chairman, Sir Alastair Graham, who headed the committee from 2004 to 2007, stays a frequent critic of political scandals resembling Boris Johnson’s Partygate.

Hamilton, whose notoriety led him and his extrovert spouse Christine to change into TV celebrities, later defected to Nigel Farage’s UKIP.

Aitken, then again, turned to God in jail and is now an Anglican priest.