Hamilton, Neil (1949– )

British Conservative politician who was found to be corrupt by a high-court judge in December 1999. Hamilton had attempted to clear his name after the newspaper The Guardian revealed in 1994 that he and another member of Parliament, Tim Smith, had received cash for questions, that is, accepted a sum of money in return for tabling questions in Parliament, which is expressly against parliamentary rules. The newspaper's source was the businessman Mohamed al-Fayed, who claimed he gave Hamilton a £50,000 fee, as well as a free holiday at the Ritz in Paris, France, neither of which Hamilton declared to Parliament. In 1999 Hamilton sued al-Fayed after the businessman made the allegations again in a Channel 4 documentary. During the law suit, al-Fayed's lawyer persuaded the judge to allow the fact that Hamilton received £10,000 from the oil company Mobil in return for tabling an amendment to a finance bill as evidence. Hamilton is considered by many to be the epitome of the ‘sleaze’ factor that troubled the Conservative Party in the 1990s.

Hamilton entered Parliament as MP for Tatton in 1983 and later became a government whip and corporate affairs minister. However, the cash-for-questions scandal blemished his career, and at the 1997 general election he was unseated by former reporter Martin Bell who ran as an independent on an anti-sleaze manifesto. Hamilton and his wife Christine, who was his secretary and parliamentary assistant when he was a member of Parliament, have continued to try to clear his name, and regularly appear on television in the UK, even appearing on shows such as the satirical politics game show, Have I Got News For You.