Some people on here appear believe that the Lord Ashcroft affair is some sort of 'non-story'. Indeed Stoner suggests that TJ's outrage is simply "the pure ranting of the jealous left" and that he is "upset simply because he's bank rolling the tory machine"
And yet ....... all the serious newspapers in Britain have treated the Lord Ashcroft tax affair as a very important story. In fact every single one, including the Financial Times, felt it was so important, that they placed it on the front page.
Some even felt compelled to write leader comments on the story :
Lord Ashcroft is not just any old political donor. As deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, he has become a significant public figure. His tax status is thus a matter of legitimate public interest. His behaviour in concealing it should be a matter of public concern.
Despite this prominence, Lord Ashcroft has long appeared to consider himself the victim of a media witch-hunt, which forms an unreasonable intrusion into his private and business life. This has always been a childish conceit. Since he became the Conservative deputy chairman in 2007, it has been an absurd one. If Lord Ashcroft wishes his life to be entirely private, he should not have made himself a public figure of great influence. Most pertinently, he gave very public assurances about aspects of his life as a condition of entering the House of Lords in 2000.
For the past ten years, the peer has treated inquiries about his tax status as a game, to be played with a smirk...........even now, Lord Ashcroft keeps the same smirking tone. In finally admitting his non-dom status, he does not say, directly, that it will soon change.
Wilfully, or because he simply cannot help himself, he continues to give the impression of holding not only regular British taxpayers but also his own colleagues in contempt.
That was from today's editorial in The Times. Tomorrow's Times will have another editorial which claims :
In order to become a peer in 2000, Lord Ashcroft gave certain assurances to Parliament, this newspaper and the Conservative Party. As any reasonable person would now have to concede, these assurances have not been met.
This newspaper is not alone in having laboured under the misapprehension that a permanent, tax-paying residency was Lord Ashcroft’s intention. His own party would appear to have been under this impression too.
The most damaging charge that can be levelled at Mr Cameron’s Tories is that they are not as other people, and do not live by everyday rules.
For the most part, the electorate cares little about the finer detail of commitments given by shadowy peers. They do care about their politicians following the same standards that they do.
With an election mere weeks away, even Lord Ashcroft must realise that he has served his party as much as he can. Mr Cameron should thank him for this service, and ask him to return to the private life that he so clearly craves.
So The Times is apparently sufficiently outraged by the Ashcroft affair, to call for the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party to be sacked.
I bet Rupert Murdoch will be surprised when he is informed that the leader writers of his newspaper engage in "the pure ranting of the jealous left"