This is a most peculiar affair.
This blog is not much exercised by the Ministerial Code. It is our view that ministers ought to know how to behave properly and if they do not know this instinctively, they should not be ministers. Setting up enquires to find out what they are up to wastes further money at a time when some of the voters who pay for all this are very short of cash. Cameron and the Cabinet Secretary should send for Dr Fox and his friend and ask them both to explain what is going on. At the end of it it would be clear whether the minister was fit for office and the PM could then back him or, if he failed the test, sack him.
Nobody can fathom who pays for this man to travel the world in the minister’s shadow, why he goes or what he does. Ministers are not expected to take friends around with them for fun, nor engage them in meetings with heads of state, ambassadors and generals. All the more so if the minister heads up one of the most sensitive and critical departments, that of defence.
The Prime Minister has to get a grip of this more quickly than the week after next. Otherwise the question will not be about Dr. Fox’s judgement, but David Cameron’s. That would be especially unfortunate in the wake of Coulson.