"In general, I am struck by the attitude of insouciance affected by Grylls, Hamilton and Brown towards the "introductory commissions".  These, it is now plain, were the dishonest means by which Greer both rewarded his "stable" of MPs and kept them under a continuing obligation to assist his business by assisting clients of that business."

Taken from Alan Rusbridger's submission to the Downey inquiry dated 7 March 1997.  Rusbridger alleges explicitly that lobbyist Ian Greer's commission payments were the "dishonest means" by which he bribed MPs to support his clients in Parliament.  This was the very hypothesis on which The Guardian's 'cash for questions' article of October 1994 had been based, but which, in late September 1996, just days before Hamilton and Greer's libel actions had been due to begin, the Guardian had then found to be unsustainable upon learning, contrary to its expectations, that Greer had never given Tim Smith a commission payment.

    "There is no evidence to indicate that he received cash from Mr Al Fayed indirectly through Mr Greer."

Taken from Sir Gordon Downey's summing up of his report of 3 July 1997.  Downey rejects The Guardian's original allegations that lobbyist Ian Greer had paid Conservative MP Tim Smith to table parliamentary questions.

    "There is no evidence to indicate that Mr Hamilton received cash from Mr Al Fayed indirectly through Mr Greer"
    "There is insufficient evidence to show that the UST [commission] payment was a disguised consultancy fee."

Also taken from Sir Gordon Downey's summing up of his report of 3 July 1997.  Downey rejects The Guardian's original longstanding allegations, which Rusbridger had pressed repeatedly throughout the inquiry, that two commission payments that lobbyist Ian Greer had given Conservative MP Neil Hamilton were really bribes to table parliamentary questions.
    (Sir Gordon also dismissed The Guardian's original allegations that Mohamed Al Fayed had given Neil Hamilton and his wife free shopping at Harrods; and also The Guardian's later allegations that Fayed had given Hamilton Harrods gift vouchers.)
    (Sir Gordon also rejected the claims by Fayed's office staff Alison Bozek, Iris Bond and Philip Bromfield - made for the first time just three days before Neil Hamilton had asked Downey to investigate - that they had processed cash payments in envelopes for the lobbyist Ian Greer. However, and perversely, Sir Gordon opined that these same three employees' exactly similar, evidence-free, last-minute claims that they had processed cash payments to Neil Hamilton, amounted to "compelling evidence".)

    'On October 1 last year we called Neil Hamilton a liar and a cheat.  That verdict is now official.  Sir Gordon's report is a complete vindication of all of our work over nearly four years.  It is a detailed and damning demolition of every lie Neil Hamilton has spread during that period... 
     'It has been a long and hard haul during which the paper has endured a stream of vitriolic criticism from Mr Hamilton, his colleagues and other commentators.  There have been numerous calls for tougher press laws.  Those calls now look dangerous and hollow.  Sir Gordon is to be congratulated for his determined and meticulous work.'

Alan Rusbridger's breathtakingly dishonest response to Sir Gordon Downey's 'verdict'.
    As already clarified, above, Downey had actually rejected every single allegation made by The Guardian over the previous four years.
    Downey's 'verdict' that Neil Hamilton had taken bribes depended on allegations that were made for the first time on 27 September 1996 -- i. e. less than a week before Neil Hamilton had asked Downey to investigate -- and these allegations depended entirely on the evidence-free testimony of three longstanding Fayed employees, whose similar last-minute allegations against the lobbyist Ian Greer Downey did not accept.
    However, as a consequence of: a) Downey's unfathomable reasoning; b) The Guardian's campaign of confusion as to who alleged what against whom and when; and c) Rusbridger's convincing self-congratulations; Britain's media joined in the attack against the 'disgraced former minister Neil Hamilton' while acclaiming as heroes the conspiratorial Guardian journalists and the (at best) totally incompetent Sir Gordon Downey.

(Comment: In an amazing act of bluff and bluster Rusbridger turns truth on its head, claiming as vindication of four years of Guardian reporting a verdict that actually rejected every single allegation The Guardian had made up to 27 September 1996 (i.e. one week before Greer and Hamilton's libel action was due to start).  It is largely through such dishonesty, coupled to British journalists' blind faith in The Guardian, that Rusbridger and his political staff succeeded in brainwashing the entire British nation into accepting as true its demonstrably false story)

Build up to Rusbridger's whopper

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