A Tory grandee faces the threat of the sack for trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook for breaking lobbying rules.

Bernard Jenkin is under pressure from fellow senior Conservatives to resign as paid chairman of the Commons liaison committee.

He is accused of being a ‘stooge’ for Boris Johnson, who ordered the botched attempt to save Mr Paterson.

Sir Bernard’s Tory foes claim he ‘betrayed his duty’ to protect all Commons committees, including the standards committee, which proposed that the former minister should be suspended from parliament for 30 days.

The move to fire Sir Bernard, the MP for Harwich and North Essex, emerged after his wife, Baroness Jenkin, became embroiled in the Paterson scandal.

It emerged yesterday that she exchanged emails with Mr Paterson’s wife, Rose, hours before her suicide last year. Mrs Paterson reportedly wrote: ‘Sometimes I just feel like I should go into the garden and never come back.’

Baroness Jenkin’s email referred to an obscure blog linking Mrs Paterson to Randox, the company at the centre of her husband’s lobbying controversy.

Mr Paterson is understood to have said he believed the email ‘pushed Rose over the edge’. The revolt against Sir Bernard comes from the chairmen of 35 Commons committees, who make up the membership of the liaison committee, which in turn oversees the rest.

He is paid £15,000 a year on top of his £81,000 MP’s salary to run the group.

Several fellow members are furious at Sir Bernard’s prominent part in the vote to sabotage the decision by the standards committee to punish Mr Paterson.

There is particular anger over the fact that it came after Sir Bernard, who also sits on the standards committee, ‘recused’ himself from its sleaze inquiry into Mr Paterson on the grounds that they are friends.

The Daily Mail has learned that liaison committee members who want Sir Bernard to step down include Simon Hoare, who heads the Commons Northern Ireland committee.

The Dorset North MP, one of 13 Tories who voted against last week’s Commons bid by Mr Johnson to reprieve Mr Paterson, has told friends he is ‘appalled’ by Sir Bernard’s behaviour.

Mr Hoare told the Mail: ‘It is not unreasonable to expect the chairman to protect other parliamentary committees.’

Karen Bradley, another liaison committee member and former minister, has privately questioned Sir Bernard’s fitness to be chairman.

Sir Bernard is also accused of trying to ‘neuter’ the liaison committee’s role of scrutinising the Prime Minister in his regular appearances before the panel.

This newspaper has been told he angered its members at a private meeting by saying they should give in to a demand by Mr Johnson to have advance notice of their questions.

‘It was an outrageous suggestion,’ said a member of the committee. ‘Our job is to hold the PM to account – Bernard wants to turn it into a cheerleading group.

‘We were forced to accept him as chairman by Downing Street because they thought he would be soft on Boris. He has not disappointed them but it cannot go on. It is an abuse of Parliament.’

Sir Bernard, the son of Patrick Jenkin, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, and his well-connected wife Anne make up one of the most influential Tory power couples.

Sir Bernard said last night: ‘No one has raised any concerns with me. I always try to act in the best interests of the committee.’