Reuters/London
A minister yesterday condemned rumour-mongering about the sexuality of Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who is under fire for allowing a male business friend who works in the sector to accompany him on official business trips abroad. Fox’s future remains in doubt over accusations that he put national security at risk by granting high-level access to former flatmate Adam Werritty, who has no official post within the ministry but presented himself as an adviser to Fox.The opposition Labour party says it is not interested in details of Fox’s personal relationship with Werritty, but wants to know whether Fox broke ministerial rules by giving Werritty access to commercially useful or classified information.Prime Minister David Cameron has backed Fox pending a full report into his conduct. The report had been due on October 21, but the deadline has since been removed, putting Fox at risk of more news stories eroding his credibility before an investigation could absolve him of blame and draw a line under the affair.In the meantime, newspapers are full of stories about the married right-wing minister’s conduct and what may have motivated it.“I’ve known Liam for many years. I know him and his wife and they have always struck me as being a very happily married couple,” Employment Minister Chris Grayling told BBC Radio 4.“The reality is, the gossip is certainly circulating. I think we’ve got past the point in politics though where we needed to worry about people’s private lives,” he added. “There may be gossip, innuendo and tittle-tattle around but the fact is Liam is a very good defence secretary doing a very good job.”The Sun tabloid reported yesterday that Conservative party officials had hushed up the fact that a friend was staying with Fox when his flat was burgled just before the general election in May last year.Fox issued a statement saying he had told the police that he had a guest at the time of the robbery and had nothing to hide. “I was a victim of a violent crime, and I’m appalled at being portrayed as having something to hide,” he said.“We are trying to establish why the media were given the impression I was alone.”Labour politician John Mann, who on Tuesday asked parliament’s standards watchdog to investigate Fox, said looking into the personal nature of the relationship between Fox and Werritty was “not in the public interest”.Fox married in 2005 and Werritty was his best man. Fox stood against Cameron as party leader later that year but lost.An interim report established that Fox met Werritty 40 times over the past 18 months, almost half the meetings taking place overseas during official trips or family holidays.
Mystery donors funded Werritty: girlfriendA former girlfriend of Adam Werritty has described how he relied on mysterious “donors” to maintain his work and lifestyle. The disclosure follows the Evening Standard’s analysis that Werritty was spending up to £85,000 a year on travel to foreign cities where he met Defence Secretary Liam Fox. The woman said she was told that Werritty was a “political lobbyist” — a person whose job is to influence decision makers. “He gave the impression that he was an independent lobbyist,” she said, speaking anonymously to the Daily Telegraph. She went out with Werritty for four months this year and was the “girlfriend” referred to by Fox as being present at a meeting in Dubai. Her belief was that his funding came from Conservative donors.