His parliamentary colleagues, among whom he was almost universally well-respected, privately wondered how he could have been so stupid. The Tory high command publicly called on him to “consider his position”.

The hapless Merchant protested his innocence and told anyone who would listen that he had been set up. He insisted that the tryst had lasted for less than two minutes and that he had met Cox on no more than a handful of previous occasions. One of his few public supporters was his wife Helen, who conceded that her husband had been a “bloody fool” but said that she still loved him regardless.

Despite the uproar, Merchant held Beckenham with a respectable majority at an election in which the Tory party suffered its worst defeat since 1832. The matter might have ended there. But Merchant, determined to get to the bottom of the episode, decided that the only way to find out the truth was to befriend Cox.

He successfully achieved this by employing her as a researcher to work on a book he was writing about parliamentary sex scandals. Cox revealed, he said, that she had been recruited straight out of Soho to act as a “honey trap” by The Sun. The paper was apparently anxious to stitch up some Tory MPs as an act of fealty to its new political overlords in the Labour Party.

As chance would have it, The Sun‘s deputy news editor, Neil Wallis, was an old rival of Merchant’s from their days spent working on local newspapers in the North East. Cox had been speculatively sent along to a Tory meeting to get close to Merchant, just in case his eye for an attractive young girl got the better of his judgment.

It did. After asking if she could accompany him around the constituency as he delivered his election material, Cox then suggested they take a detour through a local park. The couple sat on a bench where, Merchant claimed, Cox made a pass at him. Unbeknown to the MP, a photographer from The Sun was concealed in a nearby ditch.

The majority of Merchant’s friends regarded his story as being so wildly improbable as to be almost certainly true. Years later, Merchant told friends, it was confirmed by Stuart Higgins, who had been editor of The Sun at the time of the exposé.

But the tale had another twist. By the time Merchant had extracted the information from Cox, the pair had embarked on an affair. Merchant took Cox to the Tory conference in Blackpool that year, and afterwards for a two-night break in York at a discreet flat owned by his former researcher, Anthony Gilberthorpe. In fact, Merchant was about to fall victim to another tabloid sting. Gilberthorpe had been paid £25,000 by the Sunday Mirror, whose journalists had wired the flat with concealed video recorders to capture the couple’s cavortings.

After the Mirror published, the ever-loyal Helen Merchant made a toe-curling appearance on the doorstep of the family home with Merchant and Cox. The wronged wife insisted that Anna was a family friend with whom she was happy for her husband to spend his nights.

Merchant quit as an MP 48 hours later by applying to become steward of the Manor of Northstead. Though he was no longer in public life, the Sunday Mirror ran photographs from his bedroom “romp” with Cox on its front page for two further weeks. Years later, Merchant wryly remarked that not even the death of the Queen Mother had merited three consecutive front pages in the paper.

Piers Rolf Garfield Merchant was born on January 2 1951, the son of a schoolmaster. After leaving Durham University in 1973, his first job was as a reporter on the Newcastle Journal.

He contested Newcastle Central for the Tories in 1979. He stood there again in 1983 and was duly elected in the first of the Thatcher landslides. It was not natural Tory territory so it came as no surprise when he lost the seat in 1987.

He became director of public affairs at the Advertising Association. But, as a committed Thatcherite, Merchant was desperate to get back into the Commons. After being rejected by seven Tory associations, Merchant only clinched the Beckenham nomination when, in the wake of Thatcher’s political assassination by the party’s left wing, he cast notes aside and spoke from the heart.

It was during the 1992-97 parliament that his ready political skills were put to good use as PPS to Peter Lilley, the then social security secretary. After resigning his seat in 1997, Merchant went to work for the London Chamber of Commerce. When the LCC’s board announced its intention to merge with the big business organisation London First, he waged a highly effective campaign to stop it happening.

Although he was notionally part of the management team charged with driving the merger through, he utilised a series of political ploys to stretch negotiations out for two years before they finally collapsed at an acrimonious EGM.

Merchant was unfailingly good-humoured about being derided as a figure of fun by the Westminster village. He became chief executive of the United Kingdom Independence Party in 2004 and was put in charge of running its campaign in the Hartlepool by-election that year.

When the party’s star turn Robert Kilroy-Silk came to campaign in the constituency, Merchant arranged for his Jaguar to be met outside the town by a huge convoy of party and media vehicles.

The former television presenter could not have been more feted by the locals if he had been the Pope. Merchant, who had orchestrated events from beginning to end, let on to nobody that Kilroy had sent him a handwritten note the day before.

“Please do not stand within ten yards of me,” it read. “Because I’m sure you’ll understand that I do not wish to be photographed alongside you.”

Piers Merchant, who had cancer, died on September 21. He married Helen Burrluck in 1977, and is survived by her, one son and one daughter.

His parliamentary colleagues, among whom he was almost universally well-respected, privately wondered how he could have been so stupid. The Tory high command publicly called on him to “consider his position”.

The hapless Merchant protested his innocence and told anyone who would listen that he had been set up. He insisted that the tryst had lasted for less than two minutes and that he had met Cox on no more than a handful of previous occasions. One of his few public supporters was his wife Helen, who conceded that her husband had been a “bloody fool” but said that she still loved him regardless.

Despite the uproar, Merchant held Beckenham with a respectable majority at an election in which the Tory party suffered its worst defeat since 1832. The matter might have ended there. But Merchant, determined to get to the bottom of the episode, decided that the only way to find out the truth was to befriend Cox.

He successfully achieved this by employing her as a researcher to work on a book he was writing about parliamentary sex scandals. Cox revealed, he said, that she had been recruited straight out of Soho to act as a “honey trap” by The Sun. The paper was apparently anxious to stitch up some Tory MPs as an act of fealty to its new political overlords in the Labour Party.

As chance would have it, The Sun‘s deputy news editor, Neil Wallis, was an old rival of Merchant’s from their days spent working on local newspapers in the North East. Cox had been speculatively sent along to a Tory meeting to get close to Merchant, just in case his eye for an attractive young girl got the better of his judgment.

It did. After asking if she could accompany him around the constituency as he delivered his election material, Cox then suggested they take a detour through a local park. The couple sat on a bench where, Merchant claimed, Cox made a pass at him. Unbeknown to the MP, a photographer from The Sun was concealed in a nearby ditch.

The majority of Merchant’s friends regarded his story as being so wildly improbable as to be almost certainly true. Years later, Merchant told friends, it was confirmed by Stuart Higgins, who had been editor of The Sun at the time of the exposé.

But the tale had another twist. By the time Merchant had extracted the information from Cox, the pair had embarked on an affair. Merchant took Cox to the Tory conference in Blackpool that year, and afterwards for a two-night break in York at a discreet flat owned by his former researcher, Anthony Gilberthorpe. In fact, Merchant was about to fall victim to another tabloid sting. Gilberthorpe had been paid £25,000 by the Sunday Mirror, whose journalists had wired the flat with concealed video recorders to capture the couple’s cavortings.

After the Mirror published, the ever-loyal Helen Merchant made a toe-curling appearance on the doorstep of the family home with Merchant and Cox. The wronged wife insisted that Anna was a family friend with whom she was happy for her husband to spend his nights.

Merchant quit as an MP 48 hours later by applying to become steward of the Manor of Northstead. Though he was no longer in public life, the Sunday Mirror ran photographs from his bedroom “romp” with Cox on its front page for two further weeks. Years later, Merchant wryly remarked that not even the death of the Queen Mother had merited three consecutive front pages in the paper.

Piers Rolf Garfield Merchant was born on January 2 1951, the son of a schoolmaster. After leaving Durham University in 1973, his first job was as a reporter on the Newcastle Journal.

He contested Newcastle Central for the Tories in 1979. He stood there again in 1983 and was duly elected in the first of the Thatcher landslides. It was not natural Tory territory so it came as no surprise when he lost the seat in 1987.

He became director of public affairs at the Advertising Association. But, as a committed Thatcherite, Merchant was desperate to get back into the Commons. After being rejected by seven Tory associations, Merchant only clinched the Beckenham nomination when, in the wake of Thatcher’s political assassination by the party’s left wing, he cast notes aside and spoke from the heart.

It was during the 1992-97 parliament that his ready political skills were put to good use as PPS to Peter Lilley, the then social security secretary. After resigning his seat in 1997, Merchant went to work for the London Chamber of Commerce. When the LCC’s board announced its intention to merge with the big business organisation London First, he waged a highly effective campaign to stop it happening.

Although he was notionally part of the management team charged with driving the merger through, he utilised a series of political ploys to stretch negotiations out for two years before they finally collapsed at an acrimonious EGM.

Merchant was unfailingly good-humoured about being derided as a figure of fun by the Westminster village. He became chief executive of the United Kingdom Independence Party in 2004 and was put in charge of running its campaign in the Hartlepool by-election that year.

When the party’s star turn Robert Kilroy-Silk came to campaign in the constituency, Merchant arranged for his Jaguar to be met outside the town by a huge convoy of party and media vehicles.

The former television presenter could not have been more feted by the locals if he had been the Pope. Merchant, who had orchestrated events from beginning to end, let on to nobody that Kilroy had sent him a handwritten note the day before.

“Please do not stand within ten yards of me,” it read. “Because I’m sure you’ll understand that I do not wish to be photographed alongside you.”

Piers Merchant, who had cancer, died on September 21. He married Helen Burrluck in 1977, and is survived by her, one son and one daughter.

His parliamentary colleagues, among whom he was almost universally well-respected, privately wondered how he could have been so stupid. The Tory high command publicly called on him to “consider his position”.

The hapless Merchant protested his innocence and told anyone who would listen that he had been set up. He insisted that the tryst had lasted for less than two minutes and that he had met Cox on no more than a handful of previous occasions. One of his few public supporters was his wife Helen, who conceded that her husband had been a “bloody fool” but said that she still loved him regardless.

Despite the uproar, Merchant held Beckenham with a respectable majority at an election in which the Tory party suffered its worst defeat since 1832. The matter might have ended there. But Merchant, determined to get to the bottom of the episode, decided that the only way to find out the truth was to befriend Cox.

He successfully achieved this by employing her as a researcher to work on a book he was writing about parliamentary sex scandals. Cox revealed, he said, that she had been recruited straight out of Soho to act as a “honey trap” by The Sun. The paper was apparently anxious to stitch up some Tory MPs as an act of fealty to its new political overlords in the Labour Party.

As chance would have it, The Sun‘s deputy news editor, Neil Wallis, was an old rival of Merchant’s from their days spent working on local newspapers in the North East. Cox had been speculatively sent along to a Tory meeting to get close to Merchant, just in case his eye for an attractive young girl got the better of his judgment.

It did. After asking if she could accompany him around the constituency as he delivered his election material, Cox then suggested they take a detour through a local park. The couple sat on a bench where, Merchant claimed, Cox made a pass at him. Unbeknown to the MP, a photographer from The Sun was concealed in a nearby ditch.

The majority of Merchant’s friends regarded his story as being so wildly improbable as to be almost certainly true. Years later, Merchant told friends, it was confirmed by Stuart Higgins, who had been editor of The Sun at the time of the exposé.

But the tale had another twist. By the time Merchant had extracted the information from Cox, the pair had embarked on an affair. Merchant took Cox to the Tory conference in Blackpool that year, and afterwards for a two-night break in York at a discreet flat owned by his former researcher, Anthony Gilberthorpe. In fact, Merchant was about to fall victim to another tabloid sting. Gilberthorpe had been paid £25,000 by the Sunday Mirror, whose journalists had wired the flat with concealed video recorders to capture the couple’s cavortings.

After the Mirror published, the ever-loyal Helen Merchant made a toe-curling appearance on the doorstep of the family home with Merchant and Cox. The wronged wife insisted that Anna was a family friend with whom she was happy for her husband to spend his nights.

Merchant quit as an MP 48 hours later by applying to become steward of the Manor of Northstead. Though he was no longer in public life, the Sunday Mirror ran photographs from his bedroom “romp” with Cox on its front page for two further weeks. Years later, Merchant wryly remarked that not even the death of the Queen Mother had merited three consecutive front pages in the paper.

Piers Rolf Garfield Merchant was born on January 2 1951, the son of a schoolmaster. After leaving Durham University in 1973, his first job was as a reporter on the Newcastle Journal.

He contested Newcastle Central for the Tories in 1979. He stood there again in 1983 and was duly elected in the first of the Thatcher landslides. It was not natural Tory territory so it came as no surprise when he lost the seat in 1987.

He became director of public affairs at the Advertising Association. But, as a committed Thatcherite, Merchant was desperate to get back into the Commons. After being rejected by seven Tory associations, Merchant only clinched the Beckenham nomination when, in the wake of Thatcher’s political assassination by the party’s left wing, he cast notes aside and spoke from the heart.

It was during the 1992-97 parliament that his ready political skills were put to good use as PPS to Peter Lilley, the then social security secretary. After resigning his seat in 1997, Merchant went to work for the London Chamber of Commerce. When the LCC’s board announced its intention to merge with the big business organisation London First, he waged a highly effective campaign to stop it happening.

Although he was notionally part of the management team charged with driving the merger through, he utilised a series of political ploys to stretch negotiations out for two years before they finally collapsed at an acrimonious EGM.

Merchant was unfailingly good-humoured about being derided as a figure of fun by the Westminster village. He became chief executive of the United Kingdom Independence Party in 2004 and was put in charge of running its campaign in the Hartlepool by-election that year.

When the party’s star turn Robert Kilroy-Silk came to campaign in the constituency, Merchant arranged for his Jaguar to be met outside the town by a huge convoy of party and media vehicles.

The former television presenter could not have been more feted by the locals if he had been the Pope. Merchant, who had orchestrated events from beginning to end, let on to nobody that Kilroy had sent him a handwritten note the day before.

“Please do not stand within ten yards of me,” it read. “Because I’m sure you’ll understand that I do not wish to be photographed alongside you.”

Piers Merchant, who had cancer, died on September 21. He married Helen Burrluck in 1977, and is survived by her, one son and one daughter.

His parliamentary colleagues, among whom he was almost universally well-respected, privately wondered how he could have been so stupid. The Tory high command publicly called on him to “consider his position”.

The hapless Merchant protested his innocence and told anyone who would listen that he had been set up. He insisted that the tryst had lasted for less than two minutes and that he had met Cox on no more than a handful of previous occasions. One of his few public supporters was his wife Helen, who conceded that her husband had been a “bloody fool” but said that she still loved him regardless.

Despite the uproar, Merchant held Beckenham with a respectable majority at an election in which the Tory party suffered its worst defeat since 1832. The matter might have ended there. But Merchant, determined to get to the bottom of the episode, decided that the only way to find out the truth was to befriend Cox.

He successfully achieved this by employing her as a researcher to work on a book he was writing about parliamentary sex scandals. Cox revealed, he said, that she had been recruited straight out of Soho to act as a “honey trap” by The Sun. The paper was apparently anxious to stitch up some Tory MPs as an act of fealty to its new political overlords in the Labour Party.

As chance would have it, The Sun‘s deputy news editor, Neil Wallis, was an old rival of Merchant’s from their days spent working on local newspapers in the North East. Cox had been speculatively sent along to a Tory meeting to get close to Merchant, just in case his eye for an attractive young girl got the better of his judgment.

It did. After asking if she could accompany him around the constituency as he delivered his election material, Cox then suggested they take a detour through a local park. The couple sat on a bench where, Merchant claimed, Cox made a pass at him. Unbeknown to the MP, a photographer from The Sun was concealed in a nearby ditch.

The majority of Merchant’s friends regarded his story as being so wildly improbable as to be almost certainly true. Years later, Merchant told friends, it was confirmed by Stuart Higgins, who had been editor of The Sun at the time of the exposé.

But the tale had another twist. By the time Merchant had extracted the information from Cox, the pair had embarked on an affair. Merchant took Cox to the Tory conference in Blackpool that year, and afterwards for a two-night break in York at a discreet flat owned by his former researcher, Anthony Gilberthorpe. In fact, Merchant was about to fall victim to another tabloid sting. Gilberthorpe had been paid £25,000 by the Sunday Mirror, whose journalists had wired the flat with concealed video recorders to capture the couple’s cavortings.

After the Mirror published, the ever-loyal Helen Merchant made a toe-curling appearance on the doorstep of the family home with Merchant and Cox. The wronged wife insisted that Anna was a family friend with whom she was happy for her husband to spend his nights.

Merchant quit as an MP 48 hours later by applying to become steward of the Manor of Northstead. Though he was no longer in public life, the Sunday Mirror ran photographs from his bedroom “romp” with Cox on its front page for two further weeks. Years later, Merchant wryly remarked that not even the death of the Queen Mother had merited three consecutive front pages in the paper.

Piers Rolf Garfield Merchant was born on January 2 1951, the son of a schoolmaster. After leaving Durham University in 1973, his first job was as a reporter on the Newcastle Journal.

He contested Newcastle Central for the Tories in 1979. He stood there again in 1983 and was duly elected in the first of the Thatcher landslides. It was not natural Tory territory so it came as no surprise when he lost the seat in 1987.

He became director of public affairs at the Advertising Association. But, as a committed Thatcherite, Merchant was desperate to get back into the Commons. After being rejected by seven Tory associations, Merchant only clinched the Beckenham nomination when, in the wake of Thatcher’s political assassination by the party’s left wing, he cast notes aside and spoke from the heart.

It was during the 1992-97 parliament that his ready political skills were put to good use as PPS to Peter Lilley, the then social security secretary. After resigning his seat in 1997, Merchant went to work for the London Chamber of Commerce. When the LCC’s board announced its intention to merge with the big business organisation London First, he waged a highly effective campaign to stop it happening.

Although he was notionally part of the management team charged with driving the merger through, he utilised a series of political ploys to stretch negotiations out for two years before they finally collapsed at an acrimonious EGM.

Merchant was unfailingly good-humoured about being derided as a figure of fun by the Westminster village. He became chief executive of the United Kingdom Independence Party in 2004 and was put in charge of running its campaign in the Hartlepool by-election that year.

When the party’s star turn Robert Kilroy-Silk came to campaign in the constituency, Merchant arranged for his Jaguar to be met outside the town by a huge convoy of party and media vehicles.

The former television presenter could not have been more feted by the locals if he had been the Pope. Merchant, who had orchestrated events from beginning to end, let on to nobody that Kilroy had sent him a handwritten note the day before.

“Please do not stand within ten yards of me,” it read. “Because I’m sure you’ll understand that I do not wish to be photographed alongside you.”

Piers Merchant, who had cancer, died on September 21. He married Helen Burrluck in 1977, and is survived by her, one son and one daughter.