[citation needed] In 1987, Mellor was moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Thatcher, and was made responsible for the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union (before the revolutions of 1989).

In this position, he was convinced by Graham Fraser to launch a national cochlear implants programme for people suffering from severe hearing loss.

[citation needed] Mellor was briefly Minister for the Arts in 1990 before entering John Major's new Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in November of that year.

[10] Following the 1992 general election Mellor remained a Cabinet Minister as Secretary of State for National Heritage in the newly created Department of National Heritage (now the Department for Culture, Media and Sport), during which period he was occasionally referred to as the "Minister for Fun" after comments he made to the waiting press on leaving 10 Downing Street on his appointment.

[11] The Sun, relying on material supplied by the publicist Max Clifford, made a number of untrue claims about the relationship, that de Sancha later admitted.

[15] Mellor's connection to Bauwens, the daughter of Jaweed al-Ghussein, the finance director of the PLO[16] (formally the Palestine National Fund),[17] maintained the pressure on him.

We have shown tonight that the Referendum Party is dead in the water, and Sir James can get off back to Mexico knowing your attempt to buy the British political system has failed!

Among the recommendations accepted by the Labour government and introduced into law was the criminalisation of racial abuse by an individual spectator, as distinct from a group.

Mellor has also pursued a career in journalism, and has written columns for six national newspapers including the Evening Standard, The Guardian and The People, often on current affairs, but also his specialist interests of sport and the arts.

He is a regular contributor to the radio station LBC, on which he previously co-hosted a Saturday morning politics and current affairs discussion programme for eight years with former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

In November 2014 The Daily Telegraph and The Independent reported[24][25] that Mellor had been secretly recorded by a taxi driver, saying "you think that your experiences are anything compared to mine?"