Why Patrick Mercer had to be fired

Patrick Mercer has been forced to resign because of John Townend.

Just before the 2001 General Election, the Tory MP for Yorkshire East made totally unacceptable comments about the way "Commonwealth immigration" was undermining our "homogeneous Anglo-Saxon society". I was in the room when William Hague was informed by his press office of the remarks.

What should we do?

One option was to ignore the remarks altogether. The story had, at that point, only been taken up by one small circulation black community newspaper. If William rebuked him, wouldn't it just publicise the remarks?

I argued successfully that this wasn't an option. William deeply disapproved of the comments and he should say so. You couldn't allow the comments to go unchallenged.

But should the whip be removed from Townend? The danger was that we might turn this minor, unknown figure into a martyr, bringing his friends to support him and making it seem as if his views were held more widely. The story was smallish now, but would be huge if Townend had the whip taken away. Perhaps it would be better to leave it, just rebuke him and try and move on.

We were trying to find the right balance between distancing ourselves from the MP and hyping up the story. It turned out that we made the wrong choice.

For 12 hours or so the line held. But soon (after the intervention of Lord Taylor) the pressure built. In the end, William was forced to threaten the withdrawal of the whip unless Townend withdrew his comments. Townend backed down, but the damage was done.

We made our error because the problem hadn't presented itself before. We weren't to know whether the story would grow or go away. With the benefit of the Townend experience, Cameron knew exactly how the Mercer affair would play out.

Patrick Mercer is respected by Tory MPs. They will be sorry to see him go. Some may be angry that he has been forced out. But Mercer's comments demonstrated a total failure to understand the nature of racism and a gross insensitivity.

If he hadn't gone now, he'd have gone in 48 hours. The support provided for him in those two days would have deeply damaged David Cameron without saving Mercer.

The lesson of the Townend saga is unmistakeable.