Comment: Ashcroft row could derail the Tories

Thursday, 4 March 2010 12:00 AM

The Ashcroft scandal has revealed a disastrous lack of unity at the heights of the Tory party.

By Ian Dunt

The Electoral Commission concluded today that donations from the Michael Ashcroft's Bearwood Corporate Services firm were legal. But the Tories were barely able to breathe a sigh of relief before a devastating piece of news emerged from the lips of Liam Fox, shadow defence secretary. David Cameron, he said, only found out Lord Ashcroft was a non-dom in the last month.

That contrasts interestingly with what William Hague told Radio 4 yesterday: "Over the last few months I knew and, after that, of course I was very keen to support him in making that position public."

The worst case scenario is that the Tories knew all along, and that these comments are just a desperate attempt to get out of trouble. It's best practise not to extrapolate from imagined worst case scenarios, so lets proceed on the best case scenario: that everything said by a Tory official since Monday is true.

If so, the man described by Cameron himself as his unofficial deputy discovered the party's main donor was a non-dom, tried to convince him to go public, but at no point thought it necessary to discuss this with his party leader. It makes Brown and Darling look like the chuckle brothers.

Look further back and it gets worse. For ten years, Tories were asked about his tax status. And for ten years Lord Ashcroft kept the truth from his party. The scale of the arrogance is unthinkable. It's as if he has treated the party as his personal fiefdom - or rather, as if he is its real leader. It's nonsense to say that his tax status was a personal matter. It ceased being a personal matter when he secured his peerage on the basis that he would change his tax status. And it certainly stopped being a private matter when Hague, then Tory leader, wrote to then-prime minister Tony Blair telling him Ashcroft "is committed to becoming resident" and that the decision "will cost him (and benefit the Treasury) tens of millions a year in tax".

So what's the damage? Firstly, the scandal connects the Tory brand - so lovingly 'decontaminated' by Cameron over the last five years - with a financial scandal, just weeks ahead of a general election.

On a more immediate level, it neuters one of Cameron's most common and effective attacks: that Labour is disunited. Darlings unprecedented "forces of hell" comments seem to pale compared to this level of disarray and suspicion.

Can it ruin their chances at the general election? Not yet. The Tories have the benefit of knowing that low poll ratings could actually increase their support, as voters pale at the thought of Gordon Brown being in Downing Street for another term. But with this level of scandal at this stage in the electoral cycle, the Tories are increasingly appearing as if they will win purely on the basis of not being Labour. If the government was even vaguely popular, they would surely have no hope, especially given the drop in their polling and various flip-flops over policy.

The Conservatives also enjoyed two pieces of luck One was the death of Michael Foot yesterday which, while not wanting to sound cold, had the inadvertent effect of dragging political journalists in Westminster off the story, giving the Tories a 12 hour breather. Given their stunningly disorganised approach to the issue today, it is not an opportunity they appear to have made the best of. The second is Gordon Brown's appearance in front of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war tomorrow, which will again distract the attentions of political journalists.

There are two future events which will define the level of damage the Tories will suffer as a result of this row. One is Sunday. When a story breaks on a Monday and continues to simmer throughout the week, Sunday newspaper journalists have all week to dig up trouble on it. The second is on Thursday March 18th, when the Commons public administration committee launches its inquiry into the matter. Some diary events take the heat off the Conservatives, some pile it on.

The only protection the party has is that the story becomes so complex the public lose interest. But taken on facts alone, this is probably the most damaging row Cameron's new-look Tories have faced. It couldn't possibly have come at a worse time, but there's the irony: they should have sorted this years ago.

The views expressed in politics.co.uk's comment pages are not necessarily those of the website or its owners.

Serious about politics?

Dedicate one year of your life to getting to the heart of current issues in global politics. Our courses allow you to specialise in development and policy-making, international relations, and political journalism and communications.

Tags:
• comment