Edge of the envelope
From Neil Hamilton Sir: Peter °borne (Politics, 17 July) implies that Butler was wrong to clear me when he investigated the allegations preceding my ministerial resignation in October 1994. At that time, Mr Fayed was alleging that his lobbyist, Ian Greer, had paid me £2,000 a time for asking proFayed parliamentary questions. Lord Butler found no evidence to support his allegation. It was also comprehensively disproved by incontrovertible accounting evidence in Sir Gordon Downey's inquiry in 1997 and rejected by him also.
Fayed's allegations subsequently changed drastically; several times different parts of them were demolished and discredited. He did not make the 'brown envelopes' allegations, which I have consistently denied, until September 1996, two years after Lord Butler cleared me. Sir Gordon Downey rejected all Fayed's multifarious allegations apart from 'brown envelopes'. After I attacked Downey's flawed reasoning in my televised evidence to the House of Commons standards committee, it refused to endorse Downey's opinion on 'brown envelopes'. Lord Butler was right. Peter Oborne should beware of making attacks based on flawed intelligence. He marred an otherwise powerful article.
Neil Hamilton
London SW I I
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