BRITISH television news programmes were eager last night to replay footage of Mr Jonathan Aitken, grave-faced, telling a 1995 press conference that he intended to fight a libel action against the Guardian and Granada Television to root out "the cancer of bent and twisted journalism with the simple sword of truth".
Granada executives claimed the "dagger of deceit" had in fact been the former Conservative MP's undoing. But the man himself was unavailable for comment.
Rumours that Mr Aitken would abandon the libel action began circulating on Thursday when he and his wife failed to appear in court. Sensationally, the court was adjourned later that afternoon when new documents were submitted which proved that Mr Aitken's wife, Lolicia, had not been in Paris at the time of her husband's visit and therefore could not have paid his hotel bill, as Mr Aitken had testified on oath.
The documents, submitted by a British Airways investigator, clearly showed that Mrs Aitken and her daughter had been travelling in Geneva when Mr Aitken said his wife was in Paris. Mr Aitken sat for eight days in the witness box at the High Court and testified that his wife had returned to Paris after she had taken their daughter to her school in Geneva. His wife had then paid his bill at the Ritz, he said.
However, Mr Rusbridger said yesterday that the evidence of air tickets and car-hire documents in Mrs Aitken's name had "exploded" that explanation.
Neither Mr Aitken nor any member of his family attended yesterday's one-minute hearing, in which his counsel, Mr Charles Gray QC, agreed to pay almost all of the defendants' legal bill. Mr Gray announced simply: "I'm instructed by my client to ask for the action to be discontinued on the terms agreed relating to costs."
During the 13-day case Mr Aitken denied lying but at various points admitted a "lack of candour", confessed to "dissembling" and said a letter he sent to a senior civil servant about the affair had been subject to "sharp editing".
The case is estimated to have cost around £2 million, and Mr Aitken was ordered to pay 80 per cent of this amount. However the
Guardian claims in today's editions that this will hardly bankrupt Mr Aitken, saying that the £40,000 a year which he earned as an MP until he lost his seat on May 1st was only a fraction of his income from returns on investments, dividends on shares and the sale of assets.
His house in Lord North Street in London is thought to be worth at least £2 million on its own, and his family also has an extensive property in Kent. He also spent 20 years as a director of the merchant bank Aitken Hume.
Another question which arises separate from the financial aspect is whether Mr Aitken should remain a Privy Councillor. This is normally a life-long privilege which allows the holders of the title, "the Right Honourable", to share the innermost secrets of the British government and an audience with Queen Elizabeth.
Mr John Profumo, the cabinet minister who lied to the Commons about his relationship with Christine Keeler in, 1963, voluntarily submitted his resignation from the Privy Council. So, too, did John Stonehouse, the former Labour minister, after his conviction in 1976 on 18 counts of theft and false pretences.