THE BRITISH Prime Minister, Mr Major, was last night facing growing demands to co-operate fully with a parliamentary investigation into the cash for questions accusations against a former trade minister, Mr Neil Hamilton,
Labour and the Liberal Democrats called on Mr Major to release all relevant Downing Street documents about the affair as Mr Hamilton made it clear he had no intention of abandoning his fight with the Guardian newspaper.
The MP for Tatton had suddenly dropped his libel action against the newspaper on Monday, saying he could not afford the costs of the legal action, A parliamentary lobbyist, Mr Ian Greer, simultaneously dropped his libel case against the Guardian.
Yesterday Mr Hamilton said he would now take the case to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Gordon Downey.
Mr Hamilton was forced to resign as trade minister in October 1994 after the Guardian accused him of accepting money from Mr Mohammed al-Fayed, the Egyptian born owner of London's luxury Harrods store, in return for tabling questions in parliament.
The Guardian editor, Mr Alan Rusbridger, who yesterday published a fresh series of allegations about the affair, dismissed the move as the "final act of bluff" and declared he stood by his story.
The newspaper said its evidence to the court would have revealed "a pattern of parliamentary sleaze more far reaching than anyone had imagined Lord Nolan, the chain an of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, backed the idea of an inquiry by Sir Gordon into what he described as the "serious" allegations against Mr Hamilton.
"The continuing accusations and counter accusations in this case are damaging to the reputation of Parliament and the truth of the matter needs to be properly investigated," he said, in At the Labour Party conference Blackpool, Mr Tony Blair moved swiftly to exploit the affair as he reaffirmed his pledge to legislate to force political parties to declare the source of all large donations.
"The Tories changed the law to let Mr Hamilton bring his case. We will change the law to make the Tories clean up their act," Mr Blair told conference delegates.
"To coin a phrase, we will be tough on sleaze and tough on the causes of sleaze."