Tuesday 9 March 2010

Lord Ashcroft is quite wrong

The news from David Cameron is that he has clearly acted to settle the Ashcroft matter before the general election. That's good. The Tories say that he will stand down from his party role after the election. That's good. The problem of course is that this is the man who promised to stop being a non-dom ten years ago. Promises are cheap when it saves you millions of pounds not to do what you promise.

That is why the words from David Cameron sound hollow. Acting now sounds like ten years too late. If Lord Ashcroft has not done what he promised then that sounds like lies, deception and deceipt (see yesterday's blog). When you can mix up the terms "non-dom" and long-term resident" then that's also deception, and it is simply wrong to allow people to buy their way into our legislature.

David Cameron may now be taking credit for the fact that answers are being given as to the tax status of Lord Ashcroft. That's great. However Lord Ashcroft is different from other wealthy donors because of his "promise" to come clean. You have to presume from this that he wouldn't have been honest without David Cameron's intervention. Lord Ashcroft is no different from any non-dom who want to preside over our laws, and that is quite simply wrong.

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