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26 October 1994: The Guardian carries an article by David Hencke reporting Hamilton's resignation. Most significantly, in the article Hencke uses vague "passive" language to describe why Tim Smith had resigned. 
    Unlike previous articles, in which Hencke had confidently named Ian Greer as being Smith's paymaster, for the first time Hencke uses "passive" language to avoid naming who had paid Smith.  Later in the article Hencke uses similar distancing language which, when carefully examined, suggests that Mohammed Al Fayed had not, in fact, made any specific 'cash for questions' allegations at all during his first meeting with Peter Preston in July 1993.
    Hencke states:
                "Tim Smith, a junior Northern Ireland minister, resigned after the Guardian exposed that he had taken cash for
                asking questions in Parliament,"
    - and later:
                "Tim Smith, MP for Beaconsfield, knowing that he had declared the 'cash for questions' payments to the Inland
                Revenue, decided to go.."
    - and later still:
                "after Peter Preston, editor of the Guardian, met Mohamed Al-Fayed at Harrods, the Guardian began an
                investigation which suggested, among other things, that MPs had been involved in taking cash for questions…  The
                key link was suggested to be Ian Greer Associates, the parliamentary lobbyists who acted for the House of Fraser for
                almost five years on a £50,000*-a-year retainer."
    *Note: Ian Greer's annual retainer was actually £25,000, not £50,000. 

Also on 26 October: The Guardian publishes a leading article by Peter Preston a) using vague language to describe why the paper had embarked on its investigations, and b) confirming that these had focused on the activities of Ian Greer Associates.
    In his article Preston also uses a vague form of words to describe what Fayed had said during their first meeting, suggesting that Fayed had not made any 'cash for questions' allegations during the meeting at all.  Preston explained that it was:
                "information passed to this paper by Mr Al-Fayed which began our 15-month inquiries into Mr Greer, Mr Smith and
                Mr Hamilton"; and that the inquiry subsequently launched by Downing Street into cash-for-questions "inevitably
                featured Ian Greer Associates at the very centre of the stage."

27 October 1994: The Guardian publishes an article by Peter Preston betraying Preston's total confusion as to why Tim Smith had resigned.
    Preston's article listed a series of questions probing Prime Minister John Major about the recent report by Cabinet Secretary Sir Robin Butler.  Sir Robin had investigated Fayed's allegations against ministers, as communicated on 29 September by Brian Hitchen of The Sunday Express.  However, Preston's questions do not so much probe the adequacy of the inquiry.  Instead, Preston probes for information as to what the allegations were that the inquiry was investigating.
    Beneath bluff and bluster, Preston's questions reveal that The Guardian remained confused as to why Smith resigned, and betray that The Guardian's main interest in Smith continued to be Smith's relationship with lobbyist Ian Greer.  Preston begins:
            SIR Robin Butler's five-page report fails or omits to address a number of questions:…
            What were these allegations?  If about Mr Hamilton and Mr Smith, they first appeared in The Guardian of October 5,
        1993, in a full-page study of the work of Ian Greer Associates….*
            Had Tim Smith already confessed, in which case natural justice was irrelevant?  He had clearly been seen by Sir Robin
        Butler in the week beginning October 3…
            When was Mr Smith's offer of resignation first tendered?  Why doesn't Sir Robin mention it? 
            Why was Mr Al-Fayed at no stage approached for clarification?… 
            Why "allegations" against Mr Smith?  The Northern Ireland minister had already confessed and resigned long before
        Sir Robin concluded his report, hadn't he?  When did the meetings with the two ministers take place?  What did they
        say?  What "other inquiries" does Sir Robin mean?  When did Mr Major "envisage publishing" this report?…
            We repeat: when did Mr Smith "volunteer" these facts?  Was it in the week beginning October 3?  Why was he still in
        office on October 20 when the Guardian put his case on its front page?  What details did Mr Smith give Sir Robin about
        his relationship with Ian Greer Associates?  Was he questioned at all on matters beyond that immediate relationship?              When Sir Robin "found" no evidence, where did he look?  Did he ask Mr Al-Fayed?  Did he ask Ian Greer?  Did he,
        after publication, ask the Guardian?  Who else was there to ask? 
            
*Note: Contrary to Preston's statement, The Guardian's article of 5 October 1993 contained no allegations against Ian Greer.

Also on 27 October: Acting as Mohamed Al Fayed's emissary, LibDem MP Alex Carlile QC relates Fayed's allegations against Neil Hamilton to the Members' Interests Committee.  Significantly, Carlile's letter did not mention any "cash for questions" allegation.
    Carlile's letter of complaint consisted entirely of Hamilton's non-registration of his stay at the Paris Ritz and a new allegation that Fayed had given Hamilton £6,000 of Harrods gift vouchers.  Carlile's complaint did not mention any 'cash for questions' allegations against Hamilton, whether from Mohamed Fayed directly or the lobbyist Ian Greer. 
    Equally significantly, in his letter Carlile stated his belief that the new 'gift voucher' allegations could be corroborated by Fayed's appointment diaries held at Harrods and by Fayed's Harrods office staff.  However, Fayed has never produced any documents or Harrods staff to corroborate these gift voucher allegations.  There is one logical explanation: Fayed had told Carlile that his Harrods staff should be able to corroborate his allegations before he had even bothered to obtain their co-operation first, and that, ultimately, in this instance, Fayed failed to obtain it.  Carlile's letter stated:
                'He [Hamilton] obtained benefits in kind from Mr Al Fayed in the form of Harrods vouchers of the value of £100
                each, to a total of about £6,000.  Significant circumstantial evidence of these can, I believe, be found in appointment
                diaries at Mr Al Fayed's office in Harrods, in which Mr Hamilton's visits are diaried, plus direct evidence from
                Mr Al Fayed himself and possibly some of his staff.'

28 October: The New Statesman publishes a highly significant article by political journalist Andrew Roth, confirming the mistaken premise on which The Guardian had based its 'cash for questions' article.
    Andrew Roth is the journalist who, in his book on MPs' interests, "Parliamentary Profiles", published in November 1989, described luridly the commission payments that lobbyist Ian Greer had given Conservative MP Michael Grylls for introducing new clients.  Roth's description had implied explicitly that Greer's commissions were really corrupt kickbacks.  This had then aroused the interest of two vociferous backbench Labour MPs who sat on the Members' Interests Committee, Dale Campbell-Savours and Bob Cryer, which led to the committee interrogating Greer on 4 April 1990.  During this hearing Ian Greer disclosed that he had given commissions to three MPs.  However he declined to name them, claiming that it was not his position to do so.
    Roth was also a columnist on the weekly current affairs magazine, New Statesman.  In the 28 October issue he reflected on Tim Smith's resignation following The Guardian's 'cash for questions' article the previous week, and how this related to the events of 89-90:
            'In 1989 I first disclosed that Tory MP Sir Michael Grylls was taking an unregistered commission from Ian Greer for
            referring business to him…  his libel lawyer urged him to register his Greer connection.  But just before the Committee
            learned he had registered, the Tory majority voted for an investigation of my allegation, to clear Mr Grylls' name.
                During the investigation Ian Greer admitted that, in addition to Grylls, he had paid two other MPs.  We now know for
            sure that Tim Smith was one.'
    Andrew Roth's concluding comment shows that he believed that Tim Smith's resignation was an admission of the Guardian's allegation that he had received bribes from the lobbyist Ian Greer.  Furthermore, Roth shows that he believed additionally that Smith's resignation vindicated his belief that the lobbyist's commission payments were a means by which he bribed MPs.  Specifically, Roth's misplaced bragging confirmed that he and his Guardian colleagues believed that:
            a)  Ian Greer's commission payments were covert bribes to MPs for tabling questions;
            b)  Ian Greer had given commission payments to Tim Smith;
            c)  Tim Smith had resigned because a) and b) were true. 
    However, Roth and The Guardian were wrong.  Tim Smith had not received a commission payment from Greer -- but The Guardian would not discover this until two years later on 20 September 1996, just ten days before Hamilton's & Greer's libel actions were due to begin.

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