• Senior Tory backbencher, Patrick Mercer, warned that the controversy was in danger of becoming a "distraction" for the MoD.
17:14 Pro-Israel group BICOM says they funded Werritty's Herzlyia Conference trip a few years ago though not the one with Fox in 2011, according to ITV's Lucy Manning.
16:50 Chief leader writer David Hughes writes on the question MPs should have asked in the Commons yesterday, but didn't. "What was Mr Werritty doing at those meetings?"
Every Labour MP called by the Speaker – and by my count there were 18 of them – failed to land a glove on the Defence Secretary. Their questions were either over-elaborate or designed to show how smart the questioner was, or a combination of both. The question that was screaming out to be asked was: "What was Mr Werritty doing at those meetings?" That, surely, is what we all want to know. Why didn't anyone ask? It's not the first time that MPs have missed the obvious and it won't be the last. The short, sharp and pithy question is a valuable weapon in the Chamber yet is seldom used.
Opposition failed to challenge Fox on what Werritty was doing in meetings with him
16:40 To recap the interview Boulter gave to the BBC, he said it was a "half-truth" for Fox to suggest that their meeting was the result of a chance encounter with Werritty in a restaurant.
Boulter had a meeting with Werritty in April, following which the "clear intention" was that the "adviser" would arrange for him to see Fox.
He said of the meeting with Werritty in a Dubai restaurant on the eve of Fox's arrival in the Gulf emirate. But he added: "It is not right to characterise the meeting as an accidental occurrence. You don't get to meet ministers over a glass of wine in a restaurant and that wasn't the case here."
16:34 US officials have said the Fox/Werritty dinner with General Adams in Tampa was a "routine dinner" and that no classified information was disclosed.
15.45 UPDATED Boulter revealed that Adam Werritty said he liked to travel first class. The Evening Standard has a story claiming that Werritty's trips with Liam Fox would have cost up to £85,000, raising serious questions about how the 33-year-old consultant could have afforded it himself on the income he received.
15:23 Speaking on BBC just now, Boulter said he emailed Werritty after meeting Fox to offer voice encryption for free to British troops. He says Fox has only given a "half truth" about their "chance meeting" in Dubai. He says Werritty wanted to brush the whole meeting "under the carpet."
15:00 Labour's Deputy Leader Harriet Harman has just said in House of Commons questions that the scandal "goes to the heart of trust in Government." She also accuses the Government of blocking proper investigation into Fox. Clegg defended the inquiry, but admitted the defence secretary's conduct "raises serious concerns".
Nick Clegg at the Commons questions
14:49 Deputy leader Nick Clegg is taking questions right now in the House of Commons. If any come up about the inquiry we will share them with you here.
14:35 Up until now Fox has enjoyed strong support from Conservative MPs - particularly the Tory right
But senior Tory backbencher, Patrick Mercer, has warned that the controversy was in danger of becoming a "distraction" for the MoD.
The former Army officer that MoD staff needed to be able to get on with running campaigns in Afghanistan and Libya without having to worry about "non-defence issues".
The last thing that busy civil servants and busy uniformed staff need inside the Ministry of Defence is this sort of distraction with their boss. It is not helping having the Secretary of State for Defence thoroughly distracted by non-defence issues.
"The Ministry of Defence has got a difficult job to do, it is under a great deal of pressure, it needs its boss - who has my full support and respect - to get on with the difficult job that he has to do.
14:12 Werritty has just been interviewed by officials. Sources close to the inquiry said that a conversation between Mr Werritty and Cabinet Office officials took place a little earlier at an undisclosed location away from Whitehall. Dr Fox's political career may depend on whether the inquiry finds that Mr Werritty benefited financially from their links.
13:45 Harvey Boulter, the Dubai businessman who met with Werritty and Fox in April, told ITV's Lucy Manning: "I know [Werritty] flew 1st class as he told me he preferred Seat 1A or 1K." Which begs the question, who paid?
Boulter also said Werritty asked him to deny their Dubai meeting had taken place
Harvey Boulter
13:42 Alex Forrest, an ITV correspondent, seems to think Tory MP David Davis could be eyeing up Fox's Cabinet position:
@alexforrestitv Been hearing that David Davis was trying to shore up support on Sunday to take over from Fox should the need arise.
13:36 Deputy Editor Benedict Brogan says Sir Gus' resignation should come as no surprise, and neither should his naming of Jeremy Heywood as his successor:
13:32 The Whitehall inquiry may never get to the bottom of whether Werritty financially gained from his links with Fox as it does not have power to demand documents from witnesses who are not civil servants.
13:20 Despite his robust defence of his position and the support of Cameron, Fox is still being backed to lose is fight to remain in office, and bookmakers William Hill have shortened their odds for him to leave Cabinet before the General Election from 13/8 to 5/4 and to be the next Cabinet Minister to leave their post from 9/4 to 2/1 favourite.
Will Fox still be in office at the next General Election? 4/7 Yes; 5/4 No
Who will be the next Cabinet minister to leave office? 2/1 Liam Fox; 5/2 Chris Huhne; 5/1 Kenneth Clarke; 10/1 Baroness Warsi; 16/1 Vince Cable
13:12 Sky News are reporting that Werritty will be interviewed today. He has been noticeable quiet since the scandal broke at the end of last week, declining to issue a formal statement or answer allegations.
13:10 How much did Werritty spend on all those trips abroad with Fox? The Evening Standard have done the maths and they estimate at least £100,000.
They've done an analysis based on British Airways fares to the various destinations, which included Dubai five times, plus Hong Kong Washington and Singapore twice each.
The 18 trips would cost £25,000 in tickets if he sat in economy class, or £77,146 in business.
To that they've added stays in hotels and dinner expenses and it quickly adds up to £100,000.
12:58 In recognition of his contribution to public life, O'Donnell has been nominated by the Prime Minister for a life peerage.
12:40 You can understand why the British public are so apathetic to politics when corruption runs deep and often goes unpunished, writes Conservative blogger Harry Cole.
Just like Chris Huhne before him, the web is well and truly tangled but Dr Fox is not going down without a fight.
The cover up is often a far worse lack of judgment than the original sin. There could well be an innocent explanation for Fox and Werritty's transcontinental gatherings, but it's the deception that renders both Fox and Huhne unfit for High Office.
They may not have the decency to walk as they know full well that Cameron is a weak Prime Minister who would rather have limping casualties (Cable, Huhne, Spelman, Clarke etc.) than risking sending anyone to the back-benches to act as lightening rods for anti-coalition sentiment.
12:31 Ed Miliband comments on Sir Gus' resignation:
Gus O'Donnell has had a distinguished career serving our country, including at the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.
I had a chance to work with him in both of those places, and he was an outstanding public servant, unfailingly helpful, thoughtful and supportive in implementing the agenda of the government. He is not simply an outstanding public servant but a person of the utmost generosity and kindness.
He will be missed in government and I wish him well in the future.
12:22 Sir Gus' retirement will see a reorganisation at the top of the Whitehall bureaucracy, with his role as head of the Home Civil Service being hived off.
The position will go to Ian Watmore, currently head of the Efficiency and Reform Group, who will hold the two posts together.
While Jeremy Heywood will combine the role of Cabinet Secretary with his current job at No 10 to be the most senior policy adviser to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister.
Cameron, who announced the move to ministers at this morning's meeting of the Cabinet, paid tribute to Sir Gus as "the outstanding civil servant of his generation".
11:28 The decision for O'Donnell to step down at the end of the year comes at an odd time, considering that he told yesterday he would head the inquiry into Fox.
11:17 Correspondent Christopher Hope has big news from Whitehall, Cabinet Secretary and Civil Service head Sir Gus O'Donnell is to quit and his job split in two. He says O'Donnell will stand down at the end of year and Jeremy Heywood will become Cabinet Secretary. Head of Civil Service to be decided.
11.11 Undoubetdly one of the funniest jokes to come out the saga:
@carlmaxim: Apparently Liam Fox has a new sign on his desk that reads: "You don't have to be MoD to work here, but it helps."
10:42 It is also interesting to note Fox and Werritty met eight times after the defence secretary says he discovered Werritty was using unauthorised government-issue business cards.
10:34 The Independent has taken the line that Fox should resign and his "flawed judgment" should not be tolerated.
As the saga descends ever further into the minutiae of when, where and how meetings were arranged or minuted, the central, still unanswered question, is why Mr Fox failed to recognise that he needed to keep his professional distance from a friend with links to the defence industry once he became the Secretary of State. Such a judgement does not need a ministerial code of conduct, it is plain common sense.
Equally, that Mr Fox attended meetings scheduled by a personal friend and unattended by departmental staff indicates a cavalier and unprofessional attitude that can only be a matter of concern. Mr Fox has admitted that he should not have met a commercial supplier without an official present. But his acknowledgement is too little, too late ...
10:15 Telegraph' cartoonist Adams seems to be showing that Fox has received the backing of the PM despite the intensifying media hunt. Cameron has decided to put a protective arm around Fox, batting off Labour calls for a resignation.
10:06 This may shed some light on the sheer number of visits Fox made with Werritty overseas. It is worth remembering that it is still unclear as to how he funded the trips and whether he made any money on them.
Liam Fox and Adam Werritty Meetings
09:56 Speaking to the Today programme this morning, Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, asked why an independent adviser on ministerial interests was not conducting an inquiry into Fox: "Since we have one, why not use him?" he said. He accuses Cameron of respondign "on the hoof" to the allegation.
I think the prime minister is in danger of falling into the same trap that Tony Blair did where he tended to deal with these allegations of breach of the ministerial code on the hoof, involving civil servants like the permanent secretary to the Ministry of Defence.
09:25 Overnight it emerged that the accounts of Werritty's three private consultancies show he has earned just £20,000 in the past three years, which barely enough to cover the flights to the many places he has met up with Fox, according to The Times (£).
In May, Werritty was flown with Fox when the Defence Secretary rushed back from Washington to London to attend the second half of President Obama's state visit to Britain. Fox declared the flight in the Register of Members' Interests as being paid for by CQS Management, a company headed by Michael Hintze, an Australian businessman who has made donations to both the Tory party and Atlantic Bridge, the Defence Secretary's recently folded charity.
Fox lives to fight another day
09:17 Elsewhere in the press, the Independent's Simon Carr points out how shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy failed to put any pressure on the Defence Secretary: "Murphy's delivery is as dull as the drone of a bass bagpipe, if such a thing exists", he says.
09:15 In his morning briefing, Deputy Editor Benedict Brogan says that while Fox may have survived yesterday's round in the Commons, not least thanks to the loud support of his colleagues, he is not safe yet. While George Osborne joined Fox on the benches, David Cameron held back, and has instead ordered Sir Gus O'Donnell to oversee a report that will probably include interviews with Mr Werritty.
09:12 The Telegraph's Mary Riddell puts the affair into perspective, saying this (Liam) Fox hunt is a parlour game compared to the financial crisis:
09:10 It has been discovered that Werritty was present at high-level talks with foreign dignitaries including the President of Sri Lanka and a four-star US general in charge of operations in Afghanistan. Fox took his best man Werritty to a steak dinner with the American General John R. Allen in July last year when he was deputy commander of US Central Command, which runs military operations in the Middle East.
Fox admitted yesterday that Mr Werritty had accompanied him on 18 overseas trips and visited him 22 times at the Ministry of Defence since he took office.
These are some of the key meetings which the Defence Secretary's friend attended. Click here to find out more detail about each trip.
July 2010
General Allen – Tampa, Florida
Oct 2010
MoD – London
Dec 2010
UAE government – Dubai
Feb 2011
Herzliya conference, Israel
March – April 2011
Harvey Boulter – Dubai
May 2011
'Political meetings' – Washington
June 2011
Harvey Boulter – Dubai
09:07 The Defence Secretary is the latest in a long line of politicians to suffer from poor judgment. He certainly won't be the last, argues political correspondent James Kirkup.
All of these people you will know well, even intimately, having spent years working alongside them. Some of them you will like; others you will not. Either way, how many of them can you truly count as friends? How many are committed to your agenda instead of their own?
09:04 It emerged in yesterday's House of Commons questions that Labour weren't exactly squeaky clean either after it emerged the shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy accepted a £10,000 donation from technology firm Cellcrypt Fox met in Dubai.
09:02 This new photo has surfaced of Fox flanked by his friend Adam Werritty and wife Jesme at a social event this summer.
09:00 Good morning. Welcome to our second day of coverage of the ongoing saga. More questions were being asked overnight as to whether Adam Werritty financially gained from his relationship with the defence secretary and whether Fox will manage to keep his job as pressure mounts for a more comprehensive inquiry.
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