David Cameron calls for investigation into cash for influence scandal

[David Guyatt]

At last an apology.

Defendant: I unreservedly apologize m'lud.

Judge: No prison for you then Mr Hoon. Take this feather and beat yourself severely until it tickles. And don't get caught again!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/...CMP=AFCYAH

I was wrong, says Geoff Hoon over lobbying scandal

Former minister caught in Channel 4 Dispatches sting apologises unreservedly for damage he has caused

Hélène Mulholland, political reporter
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 March 2010 09.24 GMT

Geoff Hoon today admitted he had been wrong to meet what he believed to be a lobbying firm and apologised "unreservedly" for the damage he has caused.

Hoon was suspended by Labour on Monday after being filmed by the Channel 4 Dispatches programme seeking £3,000-a-day work with a lobbying firm when he stands down from parliament after the general election.

He was filmed along with two other former ministers, Stephen Byers and Patricia Hewitt.

The former defence secretary was also sacked by Gordon Brown from a Nato post following the broadcast on Monday, which showed his meeting with undercover reporters posing as representatives of a US firm.

Hoon told Radio 4's Today programme that he apologised "unreservedly" for any disappointment felt by those who elected him, but insisted he had not tried to sell his influence on the back of his former ministerial career.

In his first public comments since the programme was screened, Hoon said he "should have known better".

"I certainly got it wrong," he said. "I have paid a considerable price since then for the mistake I made in agreeing to what I thought was a private conversation.

"I obviously didn't know that private conversation was being filmed and recorded for broadcast, and I shouldn't have said some of the things that I did say.

"I recognise that I was guilty of ... 'showing off'. I think is the best expression that I could use. I was trying to impress, I was trying to demonstrate my knowledge and experience, background in a particular sector."

He said he had not had any intention of lobbying the government or attempting to sell confidential or privileged information arising from his time in the cabinet.

"I accept that some of the things, in the cold light of day when they appear in print and are broadcast nationally on television, don't look good, and I'm not pretending that they do," he said.

"All I'm saying is that I went into this with a very clear view of what I want. I don't want to be a lobbyist. I want to provide strategic advice to companies.

"I said both of those things in the course of the interview, and I made clear this is a matter only for after I had become a private citizen and I was no longer a member of parliament."

He went on to say he was doing what anyone did when they were preparing to leave one career and seeking alternative employment, adding that some had expressed sympathy over the way he had been "set up" by the programme.

"I knew by then I would no longer be a member of parliament now in a matter of weeks," he said. "I knew at that stage I would need to find some employment.

"You mention my pension, but my pension is not payable in many years in my case, and therefore I think anyone about to leave one job, not surprisingly, would use their knowledge, their experience, their skills drawn from their previous positions to try and earn a living in the future.

"That's what happens in all interviews. And I don't think I was in any different situation from anyone else leaving a job and looking to go to another."

Hoon – who attempted to organise a coup against Gordon Brown alongside Hewitt earlier this year – said it would be "petty" if his suspension from the party had been payback for his attempts to raise the leadership question.

But he appeared offended that, after 35 years in the Labour party, he had learned of his suspension by watching the television news.

"I assume that, in the rush to tell people about the suspension, they failed to contact me," he said.