Leader: Sorry is not always the hardest word

DR LIAM Fox yesterday told the House of Commons he had resigned as defence secretary “without bitterness and rancour” over the blurring of the boundaries between his official duties and his friendship with his former flatmate, Adam Werritty.

On the face of it this was a dignified position to take for a man who stepped down before the UK’s most senior civil servant found he had breached the ministerial code of conduct, a verdict which would have certainly forced him to resign.

Yet anyone watching Dr Fox’s personal statement to MPs yesterday would be hard pressed to notice such humility. Cheered by Tory colleagues, a defiant Dr Fox, while apologising, implied that although he had erred he had done so because of loyalty to a friend. There was also a lot of bitterness and rancour in his attack on the media which he claimed had “hounded” his relatives using “unacceptable” tactics and which had, in some cases, acted out of “personal vindictiveness, even hatred”. This was was simply extraordinary.

Were it not for newspapers we would not know Dr Fox frequently met his friend, who was financed by groups linked to Israel and the defence industry, at the MoD and during many overseas visits. We would not know Mr Werritty posed as an adviser to Dr Fox. We would not know Dr Fox had broken Whitehall’s rules on ministerial behaviour and probably have continued to do so as he furthered his political ambitions. The media is not to blame for the former defence secretary’s downfall. Only one person is: Dr Fox himself.