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Status issues slump Tories PDF Print E-mail
Written by French Cream   
Wednesday, 03 March 2010
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Relocate your vocational tanks to the private healthcare lawn - a Tory government is said to be nigh: Dave 'n George will be providing the brains and recalcitrant offshorer Lord Ashcroft the cash. Like a mid-size accountancy firm's move to the newest trading estate in Cannock, we're assured it's going to be great. But don't cut the blue ribbon just yet. Apparently Cameron's face (no airbrushing required) and the likelihood of a tight-fisted approach to funding a recovery (unless it's incentives for people like themselves) have dented their ratings in the polls, and the keyword now is hung. Brown has barely thrown a fruit in anger to see his dead cats bounce.
And not helping the opposition one little shit is revelations of Lord Ashcroft's long-deceived, now finally-revealed, status as a ‘long-term resident' rather than a ‘permanent resident'. Which means that despite becoming a peer with the ‘solemn and binding' promise to revoke his non-dom tax status he has failed to do so, and the party has failed to tell us. Given that he is a major donor, with all sorts of targeted funding for the key marginals, Ashcroft's ermine is caked in cak right now. It all started in early February with a slip of the tongue from Sir Georgey Youngblood on Newsnight about non-dom status. Brown raised the Ashcroft issue but in an answer, so Cameron didn't have to respond. He also didn't actually name Lord Ashcroft, in a ridiculous act of parliamentary etiquette. Gordon Prentice, Labour MP for the Pendle marginal, asks a question, the Tories reply by asking whether ‘Brown had been able to refresh his memory' about a Labour party slush fund in his name. Ashcroft has also tabled questions recently about the tax status of funds held in banks etc registered in St Helena. Perhaps the tax paid on his funds held in Belize is just too much for the poor, sensitive soul. All this in a slow-burning context of Zac ‘the greenman' Goldsmith's non-dom tax discomfort, like running for parliament and paying tax here are apparently separate matters.
If the electoral commission actually had some power then this could have been sorted ages ago. Cameron can stand up and go on about transparency in politics and not answer a simple question about his party's major donor's tax affairs. If Lord Ashcroft loves this country so much then he should pay tax and stop adding to his Victoria Cross collection, in order to correct a pretty straightforward example of how corrupt practices are accommodated within the current system. Labour's failure to robustly defend the union funding link (tories have a policy of raising the Labour union link every time Ashcroft is mentioned, even though that link is wholly transparent) only serves the ‘they're just as bad as each other' perception. The Tories always claim unions are Labour's paymasters but this is a transparent arrangement which does not lead to the unions having a disproportionate influence on government/party policy. But the leadership seem rather embarrassed by the union link. Idiots. In the absence of public funding of political parties all donors to political parties (say, Boris and his hedge fund friends) should be totally open about their finances, and the union link with Labour is a pretty good model. So after 10 years Ashcroft on Monday came out and revealed what everybody knew and pledged to correct his status, presumably because his commitment to Hague to end his non-dom status in exchange for a place in the Lords by the end of 2000 was about to be published. His statement referred to the non-doms among Labour's biggest funders and while they (especially Lord Paul) should revoke that status, it shouldn't distract from the fact that Ashcroft has blatantly ignored the undertaking he gave Hague and how reluctant Tory Central Office were/are to hold him to that. For a decade he has refused to reveal his tax status while having acknowledged that it is an essential criterion for a place in the Lords. There are several standards here, some of them double. Cameron desperately says ongoing coverage of the issue is ‘flogging a dead horse' but we can understand why the Lib Dems, the HRMC and others might want to get to the bottom of the issue. All of which hopefully means it might still register in voters' minds come the election but we still fear a Tory victory (and a surge in populist bigots like this in the parli-thong). The absence of a progressive or unifying leader of the Labs (and the party's chronic debt) will probably mean that, with the help of the trusty right wing media swab, David will anaesthetise nicely for two terms. Should see a real boost to fascist loons who talk about ‘freedom at any cost' with increasing hysteria. Melanie Phillips for Chief Executive of the RSPCA!
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 March 2010 )
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