Tories bankrolled by Non-Dom Lord

blueboy43

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

No, it is a fair point to make on both Labour and the Lib Dems. They can criticise Ashcroft all they like however when they take the moral higher ground they need to be squeaky clean and they are not. The Lib Dems even went to court to protect their dodgy donations once they found out they were dodgy and thought they would have to pay them back.

Huhne is rabidly anti-all things Tory as he is under extreme pressure in Eastleigh (I reckon he will hold on and increase his majority) but he is ignoring Labour has form and his own party has form.

I see the beneficiaries of this being other parties.

I don't think you understand where I am coming from. This is not about non-doms (although it is abhorrent that they can legislate on taxation that they themselves avoid, and how Labour can cosy up with people who have raped pension funds is beyond me).
Its the fact that we have had 10 years of evasion and deceit from Ashcroft and various Tory leadership. It was obvious that eventually the truth would come out, but rather than get it out of the way, they have had their hand forced making it a small election issue.

Their best defence is now "we are all as bad as each other, and anyway £5m isn't that much". It makes me despair.

Spartacus_Mills

blueboy43 wrote: »

I don't think you understand where I am coming from. This is not about non-doms (although it is abhorrent that they can legislate on taxation that they themselves avoid, and how Labour can cosy up with people who have raped pension funds is beyond me).
Its the fact that we have had 10 years of evasion and deceit from Ashcroft and various Tory leadership. It was obvious that eventually the truth would come out, but rather than get it out of the way, they have had their hand forced making it a small election issue.

Their best defence is now "we are all as bad as each other, and anyway £5m isn't that much". It makes me despair.

Of course I understand where you are coming from. I have some sympathy with your view that does not mean I fully agree with it. I do think the Tory party have handled it badly and have been a little liberal with the truth. I have said as much. But their defence is reasonable, IMHO, and it is a plague on all their houses.

We are free to have a position and talk around it, such is the nature of debate.

blueboy43

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

. The Ashcroft sin is not that of lying. As with all of these issues, such as the Brown bullying one, there have been no lies told simply wilful misdirections to make people thinks something else.

Oh, thats alright then. I look forward to being wilfully misdirected for the next 5 years.

JasonLVC

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/1999/dec/09/thatcher.uk2

The last thing Cameron needs now is for someone on a forum to drag up the sordid matter of Ashcroft suing The Times for libel in 1999 when they accused Ashcroft of being involved in drug related money laundering, abuse of position in Belize amongst other things.

Ashcroft promised during the settlement of that libel action to "make good his UK affairs". The article also implies that William Hague is the big fan of Ashcroft, rather than Cameron.....has the bitter-shandy supping baldy led Cameron astray?.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jan/28/conservatives.freedomofinformation

Still, one should always make sure if you start a fight it can be finished, as a few heads rolled on the back of the accusations and big money can and always will "bring the rain".

What is it with Lords?. If it's not Archer going to jail for dishonesty, Levy backhanders or Goldsmith 'changing his mind' on whether to go to war then it's Chai Patel trying to (ahem) buy a Lordship for a paltry £100k.

baileysbattlebus

JasonLVC wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/1999/dec/09/thatcher.uk2

The last thing Cameron needs now is for someone on a forum to drag up the sordid matter of Ashcroft suing The Times for libel in 1999 when they accused Ashcroft of being involved in drug related money laundering, abuse of position in Belize amongst other things.

Ashcroft promised during the settlement of that libel action to "make good his UK affairs". The article also implies that William Hague is the big fan of Ashcroft, rather than Cameron.....has the bitter-shandy supping baldy led Cameron astray?.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jan/28/conservatives.freedomofinformation

Still, one should always make sure if you start a fight it can be finished, as a few heads rolled on the back of the accusations and big money can and always will "bring the rain".

What is it with Lords?. If it's not Archer going to jail for dishonesty, Levy backhanders or Goldsmith 'changing his mind' on whether to go to war then it's Chai Patel trying to (ahem) buy a Lordship for a paltry £100k.

Then there's the nationalisation of Belize Telemedia - last year - it was covered in the UK press - but here is interesting article

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/40920.php

As someone said - he who pays the piper expects to pick the tune -

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

The shrill Tory response to Ashcroft speaks volumes. They know he is going to do them major damage, and the desperate attempt to make everyone out to be as bad only demonstrates that they know its bad. Why else would they have lied and obsfucated about it for 10 years otherwise?

A couple of points:
1. If people didn't know who Ashcroft was, they do now
2. It resonates with the growing perception of the Tory party of the rich for the rich. As an individual story its damaging, as fuel poured onto a fire already blazing which calls into question how detatched the Tories are from everyone else, its a disaster
3. The expose of Tory lies and spin over the past 10 years to cover it up is just as bad. they look shifty and deceitful.
4. Their best defence is "Lord Paul". OK so smear the other parties. Which puts voters off politics even more and reduces their likelyhood to vote Tory. How does "vote for change" fit with this?
5. Ashcroft is not comparable with Lord Paul or any of the other non-doms. Only Ashcroft is deputy chair of the party, goes with leading shadow ministers on policy trips and directly funds the campaign in target seats.

Here we have the mouthpiece of the Labour Party.

I love how rochdale, snakely says you can't compare Tory party non-doms to Labour non-doms, what utter utter tripe (never mind that Labour benefited more from Non-Dom donations than the Tories) and that really shows just how desperate the mouthpiece of the Labour party is.

Go back to that rock from whence you came rochdale.

dealsearcher

Can't see the difference myself between Lords Ashcroft or Paul.

Don't think anyone 'lied' about Lord Ashcroft. They just either didn't know, and said so, or said it was a private matter between Lord Ashcroft and HMRC.

Don't think that a non-dom should be in parliament, but that is another issue which the Labour government (in power for 13 years) has done nothing about.

Lord Paul would prefer to keep his non-dom status and give up his peerage? To me this guy has no right to be in government. He wants his cake and to eat it.

To me Labour and Peer are two words that should never go together.

whathavewedone

I don't think this is as big a deal as all that. In fact it might end up being one of those bad publicity stories which ends up working in favour of the party concerned - who would have thought that Brown would get a bounce from the bullying allegations?

It's often the phone in programmes that give the best insight into public opinion and I listened to one today. Very few people were bothered and those that were turned out to be union members/labour activists spitting feathers about the tories spending money in marginals. The nerve of them! Anyone would think they were trying to win an election...

It smacked of sour grapes and the vast majority of callers pretty much said so what, Labour and the Libdems are at it as well, everyone tries to minimise the tax they pay on savings etc, the guy gives a lot to charity.

One very notable thing about the phone in was how people thought Peter Mandelson was in no position to lecture anyone about financial impropriety.

If you want to make political capital out of something like this then you need clean hands and Labour do not have clean hands.

I understand that the tories are making freedom of information requests about Lord Paul today btw - there is a suspicion that he bought his peerage.

cogito

there is a suspicion that he bought his peerage.

No really? He wouldn't do that, would he?

Wookster

I find it hilarious that Mandelson has spoken of "legitimacy", the man himself who was thrown out of cabinet not once, but twice for various nefarious doings.