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The PA bulletin 'How the Hamilton affair unfolded' suffers throughout from having omissions of the utmost relevance to 'The Hamilton Affair':

1.)  No mention is made of Mohamed Al Fayed's failed appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, or his subsequent threat to John Major that he would make bribery allegations against ministers unless his passport was granted.

2.)  No mention is made anywhere of the lobbyist, Ian Greer, who was the whole focus of The Guardian's 'cash for questions' story of October 1994, in which The Guardian accused the lobbyist of paying MPs Neil Hamilton & Tim Smith -- an allegation which The Guardian continued to press for three years until Downey cleared Ian Greer of all its allegations in July 1997.

3.)  No mention is made of The Guardian's and Fayed's numerous legal moves to block Hamilton's libel action from coming to court, each of which Hamilton has had to overcome, one after the other.

4.)  No mention is made of the existence of the investigation conducted by freelance journalists Hunt & Keith-Hill, who claimed to have unearthed a cover-up involving Fayed and The Guardian; and also strong circumstantial evidence vindicating Hamilton's claims of innocence.

5.) No mention is made of the changing nature of the allegations or their chronology, e.g.:

a.)  20 October 1994: The Guardian alleges that lobbyist Ian Greer paid Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith to table parliamentary questions, and alleges that Hamilton had 'free shopping' at Harrods.

b.)  23 October 1994: The News of the World reports Fayed's allegations that Hamilton had been given £15,000 of Harrods gift vouchers.

c.)  5 December 1994: Fayed now claims he paid Hamilton directly behind closed doors with no witnesses.

d.)  26 June 1995: Fayed restates that he paid Hamilton directly behind closed doors with no witnesses.

e.)  27 Sept. 1996 (i.e. 3 days before Neil Hamilton's & Ian Greer's libel action is due to be heard): emergence of three Fayed employees who claim to have been involved in paying cash in envelopes to Neil Hamilton and Ian Greer.

The bulletin is permeated by pejorative statements and remarks:

1.)  'The Guardian reveals that Hamilton.. had taken thousands of pounds.'

2.)  'Tim Smith also took cash.. the paper reports.'

3.)  'The couple ran up a bill totalling thousands of pounds that was met by the Egyptian':

4.)  'Labour MPs boycott.. in protest when Hamilton's failure to declare his stay goes unpunished.'

5.)  '  …Dispatches programme features Al Fayed talking about his payments to Hamilton…'

6.)  'Against the advice of a number of friends, Hamilton launches his doomed libel action…'

7.)  'Hamilton refuses to reveal how his latest legal bill is being funded.

The bulletin contains factual errors and inaccuracies:

1.)  'The Guardian reveals that Hamilton.. had taken thousands of pounds from Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed...'

2.)  'Tim Smith also took cash from Al Fayed.. the paper reports.'

3.)  'Despite all the controversy, Hamilton is reselected as Conservative MP for Tatton'

4.)  'Fresh allegations in the media trigger a new investigation into Hamilton's affairs by the Standards and Privileges Committee, headed by Sir Gordon Downey':

5.)  'Martin Bell announces he will stand as an "anti-sleaze" candidate..'

6.)  'His [Martin Bell's] decision triggers a bitter campaign, with the former newsman repeatedly caught in angry confrontations with the sitting MP and his wife Christine…'

The PA News bulletin, 'How the Hamilton Affair Unfolded', shows itself to be biased throughout.  It is constructed almost entirely from inaccuracies and false statements; together with pejorative phraseology and misleading juxtaposition; all of which are complemented by the gravest, most fundamental omissions. 
    Most importantly, though the bulletin purports to list the key events in the 'Neil Hamilton affair', there is no mention of the chronology of the various changing allegations against Neil Hamilton.  Nor is there any hint that Sir Gordon Downey's 'compelling evidence' judgement depended entirely on the word of the three Fayed employees, or that these employees did not emerge until two years after the first set of allegations, attesting to an activity that their employer, Mohamed Fayed, had previously denied.  Worst of all, and most telling, there is not a mention anywhere of the lobbyist Ian Greer, who was the whole focus of The Guardian's 'cash for questions' stories since the first seminal article of October 1994 and the collapse of the first libel action of September 1996, all the way up to the publication of Sir Gordon Downey's flawed report of 3 July 1997 which nevertheless cleared Greer of all The Guardian's allegations. 
    Most regretfully, the bulletin conveys the impression that The Guardian's original story was true and was vindicated by subsequent events, though the story has been proved and accepted as false in every essential aspect; and subsequent events did not prove it, as implied, but disproved it.  The impression is also given that Hamilton's behaviour was unacceptable or different to that exhibited by MPs generally, which is not true.
    Nor is there any hint of the innumerable legal blocking actions taken out by The Guardian and Fayed, to stop Neil Hamilton from having his case heard in open court, every single one of which Hamilton had to fight to overcome. 
    In summary, the PA's bulletin 'How the Hamilton Affair Unfolded', whilst supposing to be an accurate and dispassionate chronicle of one of the great political scandals of recent years, is so misleading and erroneous it serves merely as an example of the bias, spin, and out-and-out propaganda that now passes as news reporting in much of the British media.
    It is, in all truth, a damning indictment both on the professional standards of Britain's leading news agency and on British journalism itself.

Appraisal of PA News bulletin on Hamilton Affair

Raw bulletin (no added comment)