The Blunderful Dr Fox

So the news has come though that Dr Liam Fox has resigned as Secretary of State for Defence. As Dr Fox wrote in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister he had "mistakenly allowed" his personal and professional responsibilities to become "blurred".

After a week of trying to defend himself more than the country over allegations that his best man Adam Werrity had unparalleled to the Defence Secretary and his contacts both at the MoD and on his overseas trips. He has finally fallen on his figurative sword.

He claims that the consequences of the close access his close friend has had to foreign leaders and their retinue when they have been meeting with the representative of the UK Government has only become apparent to him in recent days. Going on to say:

"I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest.

"I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great sadness, to resign from my post as secretary of state for defence."

It has somehow taken Dr Fox longer than most of the rest of us have taken to see the issues of access and frequency of which Mr Werrity had that access as an issue in one of the most secure Ministers and his meetings with key people.

The resignation comes after it was revealed that a private intelligence firm and a property company that lobbies the UK on behalf of Israel had been funding the many travels of Mr Werrity to the tune of £147,000.

If Mr Fox was getting alternative non-Civil Service advice on a regular basis from a friend employed by people with a number of vested interests it is something that David Cameron why hasn't the PM taken action sooner. After all at conference he said:

"If we fool ourselves that we can do these things without effort, without correcting past mistakes, without confronting vested interests and failed ideas, then no, we’re not going to get anywhere.

"But if we put in the effort, correct those mistakes, confront those vested interests and take on the failed ideas of the past, then I know we can turn this ship around."

Mr Fox has been fooling himself about his friend surely not being wholly on the periphery of overseas events that he attended, as he claimed. Surely he must have known that the frequency with which he turned up was something untoward, especially if as he claims he was not representing him in either an official or unofficial capacity.

But if these vest interests have managed to work so close to the heart of government for one minister you have to ask how many of them are working elsewhere? Cameron seems to think that the only vested interests we have in this country are the unions, what about the businesses that have vested interests that the Conservative party have long pandered to. They would probably hope to continue to do so unchecked if it weren't for the Liberal Democrats also in government.