Fox should go

AT first sight it seemed that yesterday afternoon's announcement of the retirement of Sir Gus O'Donnell, the prime minister's principal policy adviser, might somehow be connected with the heavy responsibilities he is carrying in the Liam Fox affair. This is probably not the case but it has to be said that Downing Street's timing of the news of O'Donnell's departure was not very clever. There is enough confusion already over the way in which No 10 and the Ministry of Defence seem to be standing on each others toes in independent inquiries without adding to it.

The Guardian yesterday said that Dr Fox should be questioned in detail about every single one of the meetings that he held with Adam Werritty or at which his friend was present, in order to get a complete picture of what exactly took place. I think that would be a mistake. An in depth look at the Dubai and Sri Lankan meetings might be useful but to all intents and purposes enough is already known for Dr Fox to recognise that he should resign or for Mr Cameron to ask him to do so. Apologies are not sufficient when a minister of defence has failed to recognise the minimum need to keep a professional distance from someone with links to defence industries and the maximum necessity to deny him special access privileges.