Lord Grope? Don’t ennoble disgraced Fallon on our watch say vengeful peers
Enemies of ‘warm hands’ Minister in secret meeting to block peerage They say it would be an insult to ‘all those he abused’
TORY peers will try to block disgraced former Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon from getting a peerage in revenge for the embarrassment he has caused the Government.
A group of Lords say it would be ‘outrageous’ if he benefited from the custom whereby nearly all senior Ministers can expect a seat in the Lords once their Cabinet and Commons careers are over.
Fallon’s Tory enemies in the Upper House have already held secret talks on how to stop him joining them if, as expected, he steps down as an MP at the next Election, when he will be nearly 70. Some think he could be forced to quit as MP for Sevenoaks in Kent even sooner.
One Tory peer said: ‘It doesn’t matter what grand title Fallon were to choose for himself if he came here, he would always be known as the Tory Lord Groper. It would be an insult to all those he has abused and would do little to restore our reputation with the public.’
Three Labour Cabinet Ministers who served in Tony Blair’s government – Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Trade Secretary Stephen Byers and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw – all reportedly had peerages blocked after being linked to ‘cash for access’ allegations.
Sir Michael’s downfall came three years after The Mail on Sunday revealed that he was accused of calling journalist Bryony Gordon a ‘slut’ in a bar – which he denied.
We also disclosed how Sir Michael faced questions over a separate incident in 2013 in which his Commons ‘minder’ intervened to get him away from a Russian blonde after he gatecrashed a party.
Sir Michael reportedly spent a large part of the evening with a tall, young woman in a figure-hugging skirt believed to be a Russian student. Some reports said he was ‘swaying’ and touched her. His aide, Tory MP Therese Coffey, was said to have ‘moved in and split them up.’ Sir Michael rejected the claims.
This newspaper has also established that Sir Michael’s behaviour was reported to Tory whips around the same time. One well-placed source said: ‘Fallon’s reputation for drinking and behaving improperly to women has been an open secret in Westminster for a long time. The whips knew about it but preferred to do nothing. The more powerful he became, the more reluctant they were to do anything about it.’
A veteran Tory MP said: ‘Fallon has a small group of friends but he has ridden roughshod over more colleagues than most.
‘Not everyone will feel a great degree of sympathy for him.’
‘Not everyone will feel much sympathy for him’