Ashcroft has to come clean

Dear Rachel Sylvester,

The Conservative Party is rightly taking a backseat while the government claw at their own faces over the donation scandal.  It would not be wise for David Cameron and the Shadow Cabinet to do anything more than gently apply pressure in the right places for fear of being seen as opportunistic.  Even so, I agree with you that it would be very wise for Lord Ashcroft to make sure that the tables don’t turn against the Conservatives in the coming weeks.

As I said in my letter to Jack Straw yesterday, any attempt by the government to reform party funding at the present moment is designed to deflect attention from their current crisis.  What concerns me, as you rightly stated, is that Lord Ashcroft hasn’t come 100% clean about his own funding and tax status, leaving some rather juicy and tempting ammunition for the Labour Party to use in negotiations about changes to funding rules.  David Cameron is currently riding the crest of a wave and the brickwall that you came up against when trying to ascertain Lord Ashcroft’s tax status (it most certainly is not a ‘private matter’ if he funds a major political party in this country) is most troubling.  If this issue is not dealt with swiftly, the Conservatives could be forcibly removed from the moral high ground.

Labour are looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card at the moment and Lord Ashcroft is only a few headlines away from providing just that, so thank you for your excellent and thoughtful analysis.

A.Tory