British defence chief fights for job amid friend row

British Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s political career hung in the balance on Monday as he prepared to face a parliamentary grilling over his friend’s reported involvement in government affairs.


Fox on Sunday responded to accusations that he had an inappropriate working relationship with friend Adam Werritty, saying he was “very sorry” for “giving the impression of wrongdoing”.


In a statement he also accepted it was “a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend”.


But the minister said he would answer “all questions” about Werritty’s involvement in government business, including Afghanistan and Libya, during the scheduled House of Commons defence questions on Monday.The row escalated on Saturday when The Observer newspaper carried footage on its website of Werritty apparently attending a meeting between Fox and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse in London in 2010.


The Telegraph on Monday also claimed that Werritty had acted as Fox’s personal envoy to the Asian nation and had organised meetings with senior ministers.


Other newspapers reported that Werritty had brokered a meeting in Dubai in June between Fox and the Porton Group, a company hoping to sell phone call encryption technology to the British military.It is important that the breadth of this inquiry matches the severity of the accusations.