David Cameron and his team at Number 10 will have been well aware that the Sunday newspapers have been working up new lines on the Liam Fox-Adam Werritty story all week. But they will have hoped, too, that Fox’s Friday departure would have taken some of the impetus out of the affair — at worst, stories meant for the front page will have been relegated to the inside pages; at best, stories dropped entirely.
No such luck. The Sunday Telegraph, Observer and Independent on Sunday all splash on the story, the latter two papers claiming contact between Werritty and the radical right in the United States and between Werritty and the Israeli security agency Mossad respectively. Here’s a taste:
Liam Fox resignation exposes Tory links to US radical right (Observer)
Key passage:
At the heart of the complex web linking Fox and his friend Adam Werritty to a raft of businessmen, lobbyists and US neocons is the former defence secretary’s defunct charity, Atlantic Bridge, which was set up with the purported aim of “strengthening the special relationship” but is now mired in controversy.
An Observer investigation reveals that many of those who sat on the Anglo-American charity’s board and its executive council, or were employed on its staff, were lobbyists or lawyers with connections to the defence industry and energy interests. Others included powerful businessmen with defence investments and representatives of the gambling industry.
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Revealed: Fox’s best man and his ties to Iran’s opposition (Independent on Sunday)
Key passage:
Mr Werritty, 33, has been debriefed by MI6 about his travels and is so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad – who thought he was Mr Fox’s chief of staff – that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government, multiple sources have told The IoS.
Some of this has been alleged already. As Sunny Hundal over at Liberal Conspiracy points out, the former UK ambassador Craig Murray had drawn similar conclusions in a blog post on Thursday.
Fox affair: donors’ fury over ‘lies’ (Sunday Telegraph)
Key passage:
One of the donors told The Sunday Telegraph they had been misled over how their money would be spent and had called in lawyers. Another company, whose employee set up Pargav [ the company set up to further Dr Fox’s interest in foreign policy] on Mr Werritty’s behalf, had instituted a formal investigation by a leading City law firm.
All three papers say Adam Werritty and the Foreign Office were variously unavailable for comment as they went to press.
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