Blair stands firm over e-mail row

Tony Blair refused to make an apology to the Paddington rail crash survivor Pam Warren, insisting there was no attempt to discredit her.

But he agreed yesterday to "stand by" the apology issued by the Department for Transport after The Independent revealed former special adviser Dan Corry's e-mail attempt to find information about the survivors' action group.

Alistair Darling, the new Secretary of State for Transport, was due to meet Mrs Warren and other members of the group yesterday for private talks to clear the air after the row, which led to a series of apologies across Whitehall.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Iain Duncan Smith attacked Mr Blair for using the power of the state to "crush" the Government's critics as he repeatedly challenged him to apologise for the e-mail. Mrs Warren, severely burned in the 1999 crash, condemned Mr Corry's e-mail and called for an apology from Mr Blair.

Mr Blair also faced a storm of complaints over the move of a former special adviser to Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, to a private firm that represents military clients. The former advisor, Andrew Hood, took over this week as head of the senior partner's office at the public relations firm Brunswick. His move, just days after he left his Government post, was cleared by the Cabinet Office on the basis that he would not use his inside knowledge.

Opposition parties claimed the appointment, without the traditional "cooling-off" period, breached rules designed to protect impartiality.

In Commons clashes with Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Blair said that the move had been "certified" by the Permanent Secretary at the MoD in consultation with the Cabinet Office. Mr Kennedy replied: "For a lot of people in this country, this case and the explanations that attach to it with the Government, stretch credulity."

Earlier, Mr Duncan Smith linked the Pam Warren episode to the case of Rose Addis, the elderly patient whose care at a London hospital raised a political storm. He said of Mr Blair: "This is the same man who promised to bring in a new politics of honesty and trust, and yet when any member of the public, whether it is Rose Addis or Pam Warren or anybody else, criticises him, his Government throws the weight of its machine to investigate their private lives and to crush them."