One of the highlights of the 1997 general election was the contest in Tatton. The Conservative Neil Hamilton, then under a cloud of corruption allegations, was challenged by the independent former war correspondent Martin Bell, in his famous white suit. Our oral history project now includes interviews with both candidates, allowing Dr Emma Peplow to tell the story of this election in their own words…

On 20 October 1994 the Guardian accused Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith of accepting cash payments from Harrods owner Mohammed al-Fayed, through the lobbyist Ian Greer, to ask parliamentary questions on his behalf. Whilst Tim Smith admitted his part, Hamilton denied taking ‘cash for questions’, as the affair became known. In an atmosphere of intense criticism of John Major’s government, particularly over issues of ‘sleaze’, the scandal ran all the way to the 1997 election.

In our recent oral history interview, Hamilton continues to deny the allegations of direct corruption. However, he does reflect that he had been ‘naïve’ in his dealings with Fayed, in particular for putting his name to written parliamentary questions prepared by Ian Greer, and in accepting hospitality at the Ritz hotel in Paris, then owned by Fayed.

By the time Major called the general election in 1997, Hamilton had successfully changed the Bill of Rights in order to sue the Guardian for libel, saw the case collapse, and was awaiting the report into the affair from the newly appointed Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Sir Gordon Downey. Hamilton was determined to stay in Parliament and his notional majority (following boundary changes) in Tatton was over 22,000: ‘totally impregnable’ in Hamilton’s words. However, he was under enormous pressure to stand down, both nationally and locally:

Meanwhile, national Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders were hatching plans to unseat him. To do this they needed both their local candidates to stand down and support a suitable independent with an impeccable reputation. Enter Martin Bell, a BBC foreign and war correspondent known for principled reporting and his trademark white suit. In our 2015 interview with Bell, he described how he became involved:

At the time, Bell told the press he hoped an alternative candidate would stand and he would withdraw. Instead, it seems likely that opinion in Hamilton’s party swung towards him in the face of Bell’s candidacy, and he was re-adopted as the Conservative candidate.

They came face-to-face on Knutsford Heath on 8 April, the day of Hamilton’s reselection meeting. Dubbed by the press as the ‘battle of the Heath’, it had been intended as a press conference to announce Bell’s candidacy. Hamilton knew it was happening because the reporters who had been ‘staking out’ his home ‘for weeks’ all suddenly disappeared.

Bell agreed that the Hamiltons had ambushed him ‘in a rather spectacular manner’:

The two would not meet again until election night, but the press interest remained. Hamilton remembered that as Labour’s overall victory was widely expected from the outset, in part because of the numerous scandals:

The focus of the media on me, and others who were implicated in so-called sleaze scandals […] Because there was little political interest in the election, the media focused on the personalities more than anything else. [C1503/277, Neil Hamilton by Stephen Abbott, Track 5, 2.05-2.15].

His decision to stand was certainly unpopular amongst fellow Conservative MPs. David Hunt, then MP for Wirral West, remembered in his interview that press focus on the ‘undermining of [parliamentary] standards’ was ‘exacerbated’ by the election in Tatton:

I found that to be a very uncomfortable position. Many of us in the North-West felt that our message was being tarnished by the extent to which some members of our party had utilised their positions to their own advantage.’ [C1503-197, David Hunt by Peter Reilly, Track 10, 52.00-53.00]

Hunt went on to lose his seat. Bell also felt the force of press attention: ‘I even had one of my interpreters looking after my house here because people started going through my dustbins, looking for scandal.’

Whilst Bell threw himself into door-knocking and the ‘romance’ of the election, Hamilton felt he could ‘never get a normal campaign going’. Bell’s daughter Melissa ran his campaign, and he remembered the ‘buzz’ and ‘enthusiasm’ of many young people supporting him. It wasn’t until the day before the vote that Bell felt confident of victory, however, knowing that he had ‘12,000 Tories to win over’. He later put his victory down to his promise to only stand for one term, making the election squarely about removing Hamilton. He later regretted ‘making the promise but not keeping it.’

On election night the result was staggering, as Bell won with 60% of the vote and accepted victory alongside the normal array of novelty candidates any high-profile British election attracts. Hamilton was devastated. The journalist Jeremy Paxman wrote later that ‘it takes some astonishing public distaste to turn a Conservative majority of 22,000 votes into a defeat by a margin of 11,000.’ [Paxman, 247]

Bell went on into Parliament, and in his interview he spoke of his shock at the strength of the party system, although he ‘enjoyed having done it’. His decisions to speak out against the Labour government and to criticise other MPs did not always make him popular; Michael Foster, a fellow MP on the standards and privileges committee, felt he ‘was always keen to put down other members’. Hamilton continued to fight the allegations against him. Downey’s report concluded there was ‘compelling’ evidence that he had accepted money from Fayed. Hamilton challenged this and continued to fight in the courts – unsuccessfully – until declaring bankruptcy in 2001. He told us:

It’s all water under the bridge now, but I do feel that I didn’t get justice at the end of the day […] I’ve long since got used to the fact that I can’t do anything about it, but it still sort of rankles with me that my political career was interrupted in a way that obviously would not have happened otherwise. [C1503/277 Neil Hamilton by Stephen Abbott, Track 4, 31.55-32.40]

EP

Download ALT text for all audio clips here.

Interviews referenced

C1503/118, Martin Bell by Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite [Track 1, c.12:50-13:45, 27:30-28:35]

C1503/197, David Hunt by Peter Reilly [Track 10, 52:00-53:00]

C1503/227, Michael Foster by Richard Purnell [Track 2, c.54:00]

C1503/277, Neil Hamilton by Stephen Abbott [Track 4, 31:55-32:40; Track 5, 02:05-02:15, c.8:20-9:24; Track 6, 02:06:43-02:07.53]

Further reading

Jeremy Paxman, The Political Animal: An Anatomy (London, 2002)

BBC News report on the ‘Battle of Knutsford Heath’, 8 April 1997.