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Sub Index of The Brainwashing of a Democratic State

The Guardian proactively embarks on an investigation to try and substantiate its theory that introductory commission payments, which lobbyist Ian Greer gave people (including MPs) for introducing new clients, were really bribes to MPs sitting on the Tory backbench Trade & Industry Committee to reward them for supporting his clients in Parliament.

The Guardian contacts many of Greer’s clients for information, including Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, following which The Guardian interviews Ian Greer and two Conservative ministers who had formerly supported Fayed during the 1980s - during which time, crucially, they had both acted as officers of the Tory backbench Trade & Industry Committee.

Over a year later, in a double fit of rage over his spurned demands for British citizenship and a £5m tax bill, Fayed agrees to endorse the paper’s suspicions.  Satisfied that the two MPs had received introductory commissions The Guardian rushes into print with an invented story to bring down Greer and the Tory government, claiming, falsely, that it was Fayed who had approached The Guardian; whereupon Fayed had supposedly "revealed.. out of a sense of public duty" that Greer had bribed two Conservative MPs to table questions.

1:
The Guardian's interviews of Ian Greer, Neil Hamilton MP, and Tim Smith MP, which took place during July 1993, and all the other events thereafter up to the publication of the paper's 'cash for questions' article of 20 October 1994, show that The Guardian's interest had centred entirely around the lobbyist Ian Greer.
      Furthermore, and contrary to the claims made by The Guardian's editor and Westminster correspondent in their witness statements dated June 1995, the evidence shows that during this period The Guardian's interest in Hamilton concerned only his unregistered stay at the Paris Ritz and his relationship with the lobbyist.

2:
The absence of any supporting evidence during this same period disproves Mohamed 'Al' Fayed's and The Guardian's later, additional claim (also made for the first time in witness statements signed in June 1995) that during this period The Guardian had also been aware of other allegations that Fayed had bribed both of the MPs himself.  
    Indeed, the evidence shows that a) Fayed had kept to himself the fact that he had paid one of the MPs concerned, Tim Smith; and that b) Fayed had only admitted to having paid Smith when Smith resigned after The Guardian had wrongly accused him of receiving bribes from the lobbyist Ian Greer.

3:
Instead, the evidence shows that during this period The Guardian's interest had focused entirely on Ian Greer and that it had continued to escalate - exactly in line with the paper's established and growing interest in the lobbyist as shown by the chronology of events listed in Part One.

4:
The evidence also shows how Fayed's animus against the Conservative Government over Prime Minister John Major's failure to grant him British citizenship had hit new heights on the very day that he had given The Guardian the go-ahead to publish its 'cash for questions' story accusing the lobbyist Ian Greer of bribing two MPs.

Final page of Part One

The chronology of events continues overleaf