Before the Hindujas, the Fayeds

We are, of course, talking not of the Hinduja brothers but of the Fayeds. They or at least Mohamed Fayed became the nemesis of John Major’s premiership. A large proportion of the personal disasters that afflicted his ill-starred administration in its final few years could be traced to the Harrods office of the Egyptian-born businessmen. Jonathan Aitken ended up in jail because he lied about a stay in Mr Fayed’s Ritz hotel. Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith resigned as ministers because it was alleged they took money to represent Mr Fayed’s interests in Parliament.

Could the Hinduja name become forever associated with rottenness in the Blair government in the same way that the Fayed monicker is inextricably linked to the sleaze of the Major years?

On the face of it, this would be unfair to the Hindujas. They vigorously protest their innocence of the Indian arms scandal allegations and there is no suggestion of any other wrongdoing of any kind. They have been drawn into a political drama that owes much more to a breakdown in the relationship between the main protagonists than to the Hinduja passport application. In many ways, the issue of their nationality is an irrelevancy. It was merely a catalyst for the real cause of the explosion at New Labour’s core the suspicion that Peter Mandelson lied to Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell.

It was this that caused a parting of the ways, not Mr Mandelson’s association with the Hinduja brothers. But as is often the case with these political ‘‘crises’’ they tend to take on a life of their own.

For a few turbulent weeks during the Westland crisis of 1986, the political establishment and the media became deeply fascinated with helicopters and the relative merits of procuring military equipment from European rather than American companies. This acted as a proxy for the real story, which was a complete breakdown of trust between a senior cabinet minister (Michael Heseltine) and the prime minister (Margaret Thatcher). The political Charybdis almost claimed the prime minister herself.

The ‘‘Hinduja affiar’’ is beginning to follow a similar pattern. When Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP, asked the parliamentary question that led to Mr Mandelson’s downfall, his main intention was to establish a link between Hinduja donations for the Dome and the brothers’ successful passport applications.

To do so, he needed to establish a connection with Mr Mandelson, who was minister for the Dome at the time, and the Hindujas. For good measure, however, he asked whether Keith Vaz, minister for Europe, had also made representations and sent the hounds off on the scent of anything connected with the member for Leicester East. Already, a number of bones have been unearthed that Mr Vaz would presumably have rather remained buried….

Excerpted from ‘Could the Hindujas do a Fayed on Tony Blair?’, by Philip Johnston, ‘The Daily Telegraph’, January 30