Rob Halfon And Tory Bullying

Yesterday, the Mail On Sunday’s political editor Simon Walters penned another instalment in his characteristically tenacious examination of the bullying culture within Tory activists, headlined “Cabinet Minister in sex blackmail plot: Politician confesses to affair after Cameron aide is accused of scheme to film trysts”. Neither the minister, nor the young woman briefly involved with him, was named.

Elliott Johnson in happier times: Mark Clarke at rear

However, when Walters told “The Minister’s lover was warned that a Tory ally of [Mark] Clarke, Sam Armstrong, planned to film the couple leaving the East India Club in the heart of London’s clubland so that Clarke could ‘blackmail’ the Minister to gain political favours”, the process of deduction was straightforward. There is only one cabinet minister who is also a member of the East India Club, and that minister is Rob Halfon.

Indeed, Halfon’s local paper the Harlow Star mentioned recently, “Mr Halfon is also entitled to a disability allowance which pays for occasional overnight accommodation at the members-only East India Club in central London, where the average cost of a single room is £84 per night – considerably lower than room rates in hotels near Westminster”. And so it has come to pass that the Telegraph has now named Halfon.

Rob Halfon: universally popular and respected

What the Tel is not telling its readers is the name of the young woman involved, and that is significant: Clarke may have believed he could exert leverage upon her, given her ascent to the top of Tory youth organisation Conservative Future (CF) depended to no small extent upon Clarke’s highly questionably methods. My information is that the name in the frame is Alexandra Paterson, chairman of CF.

Zelo Street regulars will recall that Clarke had effectively endorsed Ms Paterson for the post last year, after incumbent Oliver Cooper was “taken aside” at a drinks reception and given the hard word. Local CF groups were effectively told to fall in behind Ms Paterson’s candidature or lose funding. It all appeared to have Mark Clarke’s grubby fingerprints all over it. And it is for that reason that Clarke may have believed he would get away with it.

Alexandra Paterson: a pawn in Clarke's dirty game

The reasoning was straightforward: he could reason that he had made her, and so by the same token, he could just as easily break her. Did she want to retain her place on the greasy pole or slide back down it into oblivion? But it didn’t work: Ms Paterson, who it is believed was herself subjected to blackmail threats by Clarke, after it is alleged he videoed her using a controlled substance, would not play ball.

And he picked on the wrong MP to blackmail: there are few who command respect across the political spectrum, and Rob Halfon is one of them. When he says “Mark Clarke is an appalling man - I wish I had never met him. I was stupid. I hope to repair my relationship with my partner”, there will be understanding and sympathy for him. But there will be no such understanding for Mark Clarke, and certainly no sympathy.

What there will be is a further call for the Tories to hand their inquiry over to the Metropolitan Police. No ifs, no buts, no sweeping under the carpet, no squaring, no squashing. Or did Elliott Johnson somehow get forgotten?