Liam Fox tiptoes round the notion that he did anything wrongWhat a farrago of self-regarding, self-congratulatory self-exculpation the former defence secretary's speech provided
Some resignation speeches change history: Geoffrey Howe with his broken cricket bats, for example. Some create an ineradicable image in the public mind, such as Norman Lamont's revenge on John Major's government: "They are in office but not in power." Some are little better than self-justifying whinges: Ron Davies after his ill-advised walk on Clapham Common.
And then there is Liam Fox, who spoke to the Commons on Wednesday. What a farrago of self-regarding, self-congratulatory self-exculpation it was! He even contrived to tiptoe round the notion that he had done anything wrong. "The ministerial code has been found to be breached," he said, as if it were like a hurricane battering a levee, a force of nature for which nobody is to blame.
And why had he come under attack? Because for more than a year, he had bent the rules, constantly and persistently, in the face of warnings from his most senior civil servants? Hardly. His fall was, in part, the result of machinations by unnamed enemies. It was the result of "personal vindictiveness and even hatred. That should worry all of us."
Time and again he implied he was the victim. But all had not been lost. There had been a tidal wave of support and encouragement from everyone: fellow MPs and cabinet members, constituents, family and friends, and most of all from his wife, who had offered "grace, dignity and unstinting support".
You would imagine that he had, through no fault of his own, contracted a life-threatening illness, his fear and pain swept aside by the kindness of everyone around him. "I may have done wrong, or possibly not," he was saying. "That doesn't matter because everybody loves me."
He rose to cheers from Tory backbenchers. They accept a myth that he was one of the finest of all defence secretaries. He certainly gave us an aircraft carrier without aircraft, and arranged for armed forces members to be sacked while at war.
He began with what sounded like faux modesty. He had been in Libya where he met a man who showed him photos of his dead children. "A few days later I resigned. One was an unbearable human tragedy, the other a deep personal disappointment." So his own peccadillo was as nothing within the greater realm of human unhappiness.
"I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalty to a friend." But that too didn't matter, because he had been cleared of the serious charges against him. The cabinet secretary's report cleared him of receiving money or endangering classified material. That had been implied. It was "deeply hurtful". But he accepted it was not only substance that mattered but perception, which is why he resigned. In other words, I didn't do wrong, but people may have got hold of the idea – heaven knows how – that I did.
Then we were on to the media, the real enemy. "Every bit of information, no matter how irrelevant or immaterial, is sensationalised, where opinions and even accusations are treated as fact." It was also unacceptable that family and friends were "hounded and intimidated", including elderly relatives and children. He did not say who these were, though it didn't matter, since a murmur of approval rose from around him.
Such is the loathing politicians feel for the press (except reporters they like) that anyone can now blame their behaviour not upon themselves, but on the media for exposing them.
He sat down thanking the voters of North Somerset for giving him "the opportunity to serve," an echo of John Smith's speech the night before he died. But then John Smith was never accused of covert and shabby behaviour.
Simon Hoggart, The Guardian 19th October 2011
