Ian Greer prided himself on waking up at the crack of dawn and having scanned the morning’s papers before he had finished his first cup of coffee. When he opened The Guardian on October 20, 1994, he must have feared that his time as one of Britain’s most powerful political lobbyists was coming to an end.
The front-page story alleged that Greer had bribed two Conservative MPs, Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith, to ask questions in parliament on behalf of his client, Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods. The article said that the going rate for tabling a question in parliament was £2,000. Overnight, the loquacious lobbyist became a central figure in what became known as the “Cash for Questions” affair and was accused of