Any fallout that the Tories face over Ashcroft is of their own making

Verityred

Just couldn't care less about any of this Ashcroft business, like most people.

Looking forward to 'Little Dicky' popping up with his latest 2p a time Labour propaganda posting, hot from his smelly bedsit though.

Nash

So why don't they focus attention on private equity donations (Sir Ron Cohen etc)to Labour that got them their 18% tax rate (rather than the 40% Tory tax rate); why don't they focus on Lord Paul raiding pension schemes; why don't they focus on the non dom status of Eric Daniels and Ron Sandler running government banks; why don't the media find out whether Tony Blair has changed his domicile (like his kids) and why Cherie Blair had an Irish passport. Lots of things to focus on besides Lord Ashcroft.

Liberty

He's been cleared. He can do anything he likes in the Tory party. Why fuss about something that could have been hidden when the guy is in the clear?

Because he has been so effective managing the marginals project that it will probably put the Tories in power. Brown and co are insanely jealous. Walkinshaw, Paul, Cohen, Mital, Sainsbury and all the rest have not been anything like as effective. Even if they could have done the same for Labour would they work for Brown? Not a chance.

Andy H

There is nothing to see here.
If you continue to discuss this then the Labour spin machine has done it's job.
Can you not focus on the real issues please.

Natasha

I think it was a mistake for Hague to say "The fox has been shot" this morning.

Chuck Unsworth

And your point is?

Looing at the pillocks on the front bench at PMQs it is patent that none of them can put up a decent argument for anything at all. It was simply an ugly (in every sense) rabble having a pre-Wednesday-lunchtime-piss-up shout. There's no serious political point to be made here. There's no discernable moral difference, either.

There is, however a legal difference in that Lord Paul PC (and Lady Uddin, inter alia)is being investigated for possibly making fraudulent claims, whereas Ashcroft has been entirely exonerated - not for fraud, but for legitimately providing financial support to the Conservatives.

It seems to me that Labour can only complain that Ashcroft has not abided by their particular interpretation of a reported agreement. Even if that is so, is there some sort of law which he has broken? Indeed, was there any set time limitation by which he should take action? Where does his undertaking say this? If either party to the agreement is/was dissatisfied they could have taken action against the other. Neither party chose to do so.

So all this hoo-ha is entirely artificial. Ashcroft has broken no laws, he has not been accused by the other party to his agreement, yet NuLab - who are not party - seem to believe they have a right to act as sole arbiters and pass judgement. Well, let them take advice and sue Ashcroft. In other words, put up or shut up.

If NuLab are serious about ethics and/or morals, let them put their own charnel house in order first.

James Cowley

Here is an extract from a David Cameron interview with Andrew Marr on the 2nd December 2007:
"ANDREW MARR: What about Lord Ashcroft? Because it was promised by the former party leader, William Hague, and indeed by Lord Ashcroft, way back, that he would be registered in this country, and a lot of people feel that he's not properly registered in that way. Are you absolutely happy and satisfied that he is in a position to be making the kind of funding commitment to your party that he is?
DAVID CAMERON: I am satisfied that the undertakings he gave are being met and I have had reassurances on that. But I would like to put it in context.
ANDREW MARR: Being met, but haven't been met.
DAVID CAMERON: No, in terms of the reassurances that he is resident in the UK and pays taxes in the UK. But the point, the point I would like to make, if you look at the last year actually Mittal and David Sainsbury have given more money to the Labour Party than Lord Ashcroft has given to the Conservative Party. So, I think people get his importance out of all, you know, relative significance."
Source: BBC Andrew Marr:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/7135272.stm

THX1138

Tories have blown it and Lord Cashcroft has wasted his or it OUR money..

According yo CH 4 it worse in the key marginals than the rest of the country

http://is.gd/9GA5b

sinosimon

this isn't something that really resonates, as opinion of the financial propriety of politicians can't really go any lower......but what is worrying is how labour are running rings in terms of the media debate. every story on this seems to have a labour talking head on hand, in studio, to ramp up the faux indignation. not a tory to be seen. what is coulson doing? his alledgeed media genius is certainly being hid under a bushell. lord paul is entwined at the heart of the brown cash machine, has blatantly ripped off the taxpayer over his ludicrous expenses to the tune of tens of thousands and was promoted to the privy council under the murkiest of circumstances, and labour's spin is being overseen by mandelson who was created a lord by brown despite the fact that he fraudulently withheld details of a secret loan from a fellow cabinet member who was being investigated by his department......and yet not a glove has been laid on these people. if coulson and his team can't work with a narrative like that they should ship on out......

strapworld

Tell me, Mr Hoskin, just what crime Lord Ashcroft and the tories have committed please.

The way the media, especially the ridiculous, shouting incoherently - arms waving furiously- getting worked into a real lather- Jon Craig of Sky News (No wonder the Express were happy he left) goes about 'reporting'

You in your westminster village are just helping this build up into just another smokescreen behind which the Labour Government must be laughing hysterically.

What i will say, and what I have said. Is the way Lord Ashcroft has been hung out to dry by Cameron and co is a disgrace. Not one word - EVEN FROM THE SPECTATOR- about the good works of Lord Ashcroft. The fact that he does not claim one penny for attending the House of Lords, which compares favourably against labour nom doms.

But Cameron is proving, yet again, that he is hopeless. Goodness knows what he would be like in a major incident.

I have posted, earlier, that I feel the tory slump is down to the people not trusting him. If Lord Ashcroft obviously cannot why should the people?

It would be nice to see David Cameron, live, in the Sky News Studio letting rip into the likes of Jon Craig and co at Sky News. But that would be what a leader of substance would be doing. I am listening to Mandleson rubbishing the tories, on skynews, just now. Get a grip Cameron. Get a grip, show some bloody leadership qualities and kill this story NOW.

Minnie

I thought the media had plumbed new depths with their 24hour seven day a week bullying of John Terry . But no, they still have further to fall.

TomTom

Don't Ask. Don't Tell.

Isn't that how politics functions ? Or is that how we end up in Iraq ?

Pete Hoskin

Strapworld: erm, I say above that the heat is coming off Ashcroft; my last blog highlighted how he'd been exonerated; and I wrote a post a few days ago highlighting how Labour's spin could backfire on them.

So, add all that to the fact that you call David Cameron "hopeless" - stronger language than I use in my post above (where I say the Tories have been "astonishly naive"), and I'm not sure what your problem with my reporting of this story is...

AAE

It's so hard to understand the Tory Front Bench and their lack of political skill, and not just in this matter. Have they deliberately emasculated themselves for fear of appearing "nasty"? At the minute they look like a bunch of nice but dim chaps doing battle using feather dusters against an enemy equipped with flamethrowers.

Simon Stephenson

What to make of the disclosure that Mr Cameron has only become aware of Lord Ashcroft's tax status within the past month?

Could it be that this is the result of a back-covering exercise, in which the details have purposefully been withheld from him? Maybe it was felt that he was more secure not knowing, as long as the actual details could be kept under wraps. When the Information Commissioner decided early last month on disclosure, this strategic position was blown out of the water, as Cameron could no longer realistically shield behind the personal defence of "not knowing".

The subject of Ashcroft's tax status has been an open debate for the last 10 years, with Private Eye, for example, making repeated forays into the question. It's absolutely inconceivable that the party leadership would have been unaware of this open debate, so for Cameron not to have known the answer suggests either an absurd lack of enquiry on his part, or a deliberate decision that he be kept formally in the dark.

luke

Just think you have been spot on about this pete. There has been a lot of hypocrisy in the last few days, but that doesnt mean the tories should be proud of how they handled this and cameron and hague have to take the lions share of the blame.

Hague in particular has been left looking like he gave assurances he never kept about ashcroft's peerage.

And whilst the public wont take much notice i shouldnt think, the lasting damage will be to the sense that Cameron is a straight kinda guy representing some sort of change. This mess creates the overriding impression he is just more of the same.

Vulture

Yes, its not so much what Cashcroft has or hasn't done with his dosh - we all know Liebour would like to match his largesse with their somewhat more parsimonious donors, and that this is a hypocritical Liebour-orchestrated storm in a teacup that will not resonate with voters.

Having said that, however, I agree with Peter and Strapworld - Camerson's response has been as hopeless as it was when he waited for the Lisbon Treaty to explode in his face. He lay like a rabbit as the headlights of the juggernaut bore down and finally squashed him.

If he can't formulate a line to take when he has months to prepare, how on earth will he react when a sudden unforeseen crisis blows up? We already have one ditherer in office - another might well prove fatal.

He acted the same way over Exesgate : getting all heavy when he didn't like the troughing Tories, yet hypocritically protecting his troughing chums Maude and Gove.

jon dee

What a Tory cock-up.

The BBC, undoubtedly a lobbyist to be feared is fighting for it's bloated survival,and if that means using Ashcroft on behalf of Labour, they are doing it.

With no regard to impartiality or it's audience it is now in full campaign mode.

Yet the Tories remain compliant,showing little cogent response and making no serious complaint about their treatment.The BBC Trust needs immediate involvement and a response from them is required.

Without such complaint Tory election prospects will diminish by the day since no evidence of changing BBC behaviour seems probable.

Willie de Peepul

Is this too nutty to be a deliberate ploy? After all, this story could have been 'put to bed' three months ago, at the time Wee Willie admits to having learnt that Lord Ashcroft's financial arrangements were different from what he had assumed. Surely the only possible reason for having allowed it to rumble on and on for as long as it has was to get all the Tory gainsayers on board, all salivating at the thought of a big scalp or two, only to be left with egg on their faces when they finally discovered today that they'd been chasing a nothing but a chimaera. A good thing to be able to throw in their faces when they try to present other anti-tory guff as 'fact'.

David

So Brown says Cameron is a PR man well again this proves not the case.

Labour all about spin and Tories about getting us out of this mess left by Brown

Natasha

Mandelson and Co. are out-manoeuvring Cameron on this issue precisely because they are ruthless, nasty little shits. Dave is a genuinely nice guy, but this may be his weakness as well as his strength. He will need to learn how to play dirty if he is to get the better of the Labour electoral machine.

Lord Belize of Puhleaze

The Spec has its own domicile-style query... Mr Korski says "we should give back the Elgin marbles". Is he British, or Danish? For facts purposes, is Mr Korski a Dane or a Brit? If the former, he will have to desist from using the first person plural when speaking about Britons.

Nicholas

THX1138: "Tories have blown it and Lord Cashcroft has wasted his or it OUR money." (sic)

Puff, puff, bluster, blow(hard). The Michael Winner of the Coffee House strikes again.

"OUR money" - what facile nonsense. You should be more worried about the billions of "our money" that cretinous Brown and gang have squandered on their cultural revolution you insufferable trendy, leftist bore.

denis cooper

As Cameron has said that nobody should ever be allowed to donate more than £50,000 a year to a political party he should work out how much of Ashcroft's £5.1 million should be returned to be consistent with that proposed rule, and get the cheque sent off today.

"Oh Lord, make me chaste, but not yet."

strapworld

Mr Hoskin. You are right. I apologise. I am just so furious with Cameron and his cowardly like behaviour. Now with your latest blog on the Channel4 opinion poll (which I still cannot believe) It appears to me that there must be some infighting going on within the tory high command.

Perhaps that is where your sights should be fixed. Do you know I feel something very interesting is about to occur!! (I hope)

Andy Leeds

This whole story is a load of piffle. Lord Ashcroft gave an undertaking he would become a permanent UK resident. This he has done. He did not say, nor from what I can see, was he asked to change his domicile. Residence and Domicile in tax law are not the same thing.

And I am sick of the Brown Broadcasting Corporation running what is a very minor story over and above everything else. It just shows how Labour and its mates in the media have spread like a poison in society. Needs to be rooted out ruthlessly.

theresa

nobody is talking about brown giving evidence in chilcot enquiry?

2trueblue

The Toreis have to get it together and take the gloves off. Liebore have the media doing their work for them and we will all be stuffed if Liebore get in again.
There is absolutely no real journalism at this time. There must be some way that we as payers can demand that we get a proper service. If enough people complained ....

Boudicca

I think the ordinary voter is not really interested in Ashcroft and will forget about this in a week or so. But what it does show is that the media - particularly the television news programming on all sides but especially the BBC - is blatently biased towards Labour. There has been virtually no balanced reporting, just continual focusing on Ashcroft, when Labour has a whole raft of non-dom donors.

Cameron has been far too weak on this matter. He should have dealt with this issue months ago, but didn't. When it blew up on Monday, he should have come out fighting, but didn't. I am beginning to get the impression that he doesn't want to win this election.

Norman Dee

It was refreshing to watch the ITV news tonight, I only hope that significantly more voters watch it than the Brown Broadcasting corp.. Tom Bradby will never work for them, he had the affronterey to attack Fondlebum, and make a more than reasonable attack on Liebours absolute hypocrisy. Good man, I shall watch "the other side" more often.

Luke

Andy Leeds, I can't help but think the reason you are so relaxed about the story is because you haven't seen the details.

1. The appointments commission explicitly withheld ashcroft's peerage on the basis he was a tax exile. Only when Hague wrote to Blair saying that Ashcroft would become resident in the uk for tax purposes (costing him millions of pounds each year) did he receive his peerage

2. Ashcroft has clearly not complied with the assurances Hague gave

3. The conservative leadership has consistently suggested that Ashcroft was complying with the terms of his enoblememt. Since it's emerged that he wasn't both Hague and cameron have suggested that they only very recently learned this fact

4. Independent former civil servant, lord Turnbull has now said that he think Hague failed in his duty of responsibility to find out if Ashcroft had complied with the undertakings given in relation to his peerage

TGF UKIP

The Cameron Tories only have themselves to blame. Act like a bunch of limp wimps and you get treated like a bunch of limp wimps.

Brown and Mandelson probably can't believe their luck. While they could and should have been tremulously facing "Take no Prisoners" DD, instead they find themselves confronted by no more than "Walk all over me, why don't you" DC.

I wish I could say I felt sorry for all the headbanging Camerloons on the Speccie staff and in the Coffee House, forced to watch as their lead leeches away, but I don't. You have long been warned over what and who Cameron was and is.

TGF UKIP

Where's my post on this and I am logged in. What a really crap blogsite this isw.

William Boyd

I don't know about the origins of all this but I am a little curious. Surely the Cabinet opposition to Lord Ashcroft becoming a peer was originally based not on his possibly avoiding tax but simply that he wasn't resident in the UK at that time for sufficiently long period of time to justify sitting in the House of Lords?

It was the wicked Mekon who subsequently sexed up Ashcroft's application with the assurance that he would be paying ten of millions of taxes he wouldn't otherwise have.

Well obviously wrong about that and it took them ten whole years to fathom it.

That's what's so damaging I fancy.

Anthony Flynn

I can't see what all the fuss is about. The whole bag of tricks at Westminster are now way beyond there sell-by date. Once they had abandoned Our Sovereignty to Brussels, their days were numbered. And now with this whole bl*** Global Warming nonsense, they are no longer fit for purpose.
Now, there is absolutely NO reason whatsoever, for any employer or any employee to pay direct Taxation to Westminster. Today it is but a simple manoeuvre to change the way you work and are paid, so that you place yourself out-side the jurisdiction of any British Court.
You then build your own system of Public Service Funding, based on a County by County basis. England, with 43 Counties, not including London, could then decide that Four MPs to each County would be more than enough, that means just 172 MPs. Scotland, Wales and N.Irland would have to join in or go their own way. I have already raised the subject with my District Council and I have spoken to some members of Norfolk CC. on the subject. Oh, one other thing, VAT, this is not an impressed Tax and it should be another simple matter of turning it into a local Sales Tax, to bolster Local Council Tax and allowing for OAPs to avoid most, if not quite all, County Taxation. I must say, isn't it long past time that you Taxpayers remembered, that bunch of Wallies and Fumblebums at Westminster, BL**** well work for You. Now kick them into some sort of shape. In the meantime have a look at http://www.brugesgroup.com
Regards, ATFlynn, "Norfolk's Mutineer"

Anthony Flynn

I have posted a comment in the last half hour. You seem to have lost it or refused it. Wait until mu subscription is due.

AuldCurmudgeon

The hysteria of the Guardianistas has pulled the argument out so far that Labour's peer's behaviour is exposed to tarring with the same brush. Time for some research. And a counterattack.

Pete Hoskin

Anthony Flynn: are you a registered user? As I understand it, even registered comments don't quite appear immediately ... but that's something our techies are working on.

Either way, your comment has been showing for a while now.

If you have any trouble in future, you can always email me on phoskin @ spectator.co.uk and I'll look into it.

Hugo van Randwyck

Labour 'accidentally' overpay people tax credits in the run up to the last election. Then figures show they spend more public spending in Labout areas, than pay in taxes. Then they borrow £170 billion to get re-elected. The EU hasn't had it's accounts signed off for 15 years in a row - and people are talking about Lord Ashcroft's donations!
Out of 60 million people are these MPs the best 650 we could find!
A possible reason for Tory popularity to decline - apart from being similar to Labour - is......Boris Johnson. Anybody who uses the London Underground will see there are still engineering works on weekends, and shutdowns on lines, even during the week. If you vote Lib/Lab/Con/EU, what changes?
Let's see how the newer entrepreneurial parties do compared to the cartel parties.

Pramston

Did the man do anything illegal? If you look at the coverage you'd think he ate babies!! Talk about the 'forces of hell' being unleashed, this is an effective smear campaign supported by the usual left wing suspects and it won't be the last before we go to the polls. Of course it will run and run as long as the BBC can spin it out for because otherwise the Labour party might have to talk about and try to defend it's disastrous policies and numerous failures - and that aint gonna happen - see Harman at PMQ's.

Derek

Has the registered comment system EVER worked? I gave up trying to use it months back, when it just took me round in circles.

Traveller

Nash makes a good point. As chairman of Northern Rock, surely Ron Sandler should come under extra scrutiny? How is the government justifying a salary in excess of £1 million to a man running a bank funded by tax payers if he doesn’t pay any tax on it?!