With doubts cast over the credibility of Lord Ashcroft’s unofficial biography of David Cameron following ‘piggate‘, his co-author Isabel Oakeshott appeared on Newsnight to defend ‘Call Me Dave’. Cameron’s official biographer Sir Anthony Seldon joined the former Sunday Times political editor in the studio where he raised concerns about the book:
‘Quite frankly, why are we here talking about stories that well might not be true, put up by a very rich man whose personal promotion prospects are of no interest to the nation. Why are we talking about this, and what possible relevance has it got to the Prime Minister and how he conducts office? And if there is relevance, if what he may or may not have done as a young man talks directly into how he acts as Prime Minister well I think that could be important.’
Oakeshott was then quizzed by both Seldon and Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis on why they had published the pig incident when they cannot be sure it is true:
IO: Well we’ve been very careful in the way we’ve worded our account, this is not myself and Lord Ashcroft making the allegations. We’ve been very clear about how they came about. They came to us from a distinguished MP who was a contemporary of Cameron at Oxford. What we’ve said is that this was the account which we were given and we initially dismissed it as a joke, however the source repeated it on a number of occasions so we’ve left people to decide for themselves whether it’s true.
AS: But who cares?
IO: Well Anthony, let’s put this story in context because it is a few paragraphs in a book which is some 200,000 words long.
EM: But can I just go back to the whole idea, you have printed something that you have no idea is true or not. Have you been back to the source since it was published?
IO: Well it’s quite normal to present information and allow people to make up their own minds, on the one hand and the other, newspapers do that every day
It then fell on Isabel to defend the honour of her boss Lord Ashcroft. Describing his feud with Cameron in the book, he says the pair fell out when Cameron failed to offer him a top job in the coalition, instead offering him junior whip in the foreign office:
‘After putting my neck on the line for nearly 10 years – both as party treasurer under William Hague and as deputy chairman – and after ploughing some £8m into the party, I regarded this as a declinable offer. It would have been better had Cameron offered me nothing at all.’
With Seldon describing the idea that Ashcroft thought he was owed a job as ‘distasteful’, Oakeshott said money had nothing to do with it:
‘Hang on a minute, there is no suggestion of a deal. There is no suggestion whatsoever that Lord Ashcroft felt that by giving him millions of pounds he was going to get a job.’
Next time Mr S suggests that Oakeshott asks Ashcroft to fight his own corner.
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