A man is known by the company he keeps. Part 3.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Ashcroft case is so well documented that it will serve little purpose to go over the whole sorry episode again.
But what I do want to reiterate is that however much he wants to distance himself from it and no matter how long he refuses to be drawn on the specifics of what he knew, Cameron has not explained in a satisfactory manner whether Ashcroft’s tax status was known to him. We know that Hague had extensive and almost certainly compromising dealings with Ashcroft, but Cameron has sought to distance himself from the matter.
I find this very hard to accept, especially given that 5% of all Tory party donations since the last election have been from Ashcroft. That’s 1 in 20 of those Gordon Brown billboards, paid for by a company which wasn’t paying tax here and therefore was not allowed to donate this money.
Duncan Bannatyne is well known for his support for Brown, and for his recent scathing attacks in the press on fellow Dragon’s Den investor James Caan, who is, like Ashcroft, a non-dom. He spoke to The Daily Mail recently, saying
‘Four years ago I asked Ashcroft if he was a non-dom, and he said yes. So if Cameron didn’t know, he is an idiot. We must change the law so non-doms can’t be in parliament in any form or receive any honour. Only British tax payers should get honours of any kind.’
Reason #17: The Ashcroft scandal exposed him as either stupid or dishonest – and neither of these is an attribute I would look for in my Prime Minister.