The Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party, Lord Ashcroft, is a rotten apple at the core of the Party who must be cast out if the Tories are to present themselves as honest politicians, says Labour's Naz Sarkar.
Reading Tories have benefitted from donations from Lord Ashcroft's Bearwood Corporate Services but, says Naz, Lord Ashcroft, who has extensive business interests in Belize in South America, has:
Failed to confirm that he is resident in the UK for tax purposes, even though he promised that when he became a peer, leaving leading Tories to drop hints on his behalf every which way
Failed, as revealed yesterday in The Guardian, to declare his interest in Bearwood Corporate Services in the House of Lords register of interests, although it has given over £5 Million to the party of which he is Vice-Chairman
Obstructed investigations by the Electoral Commission trying to determine if Bearwood is actually trading in the UK, which is a legal condition for giving money to a political party
Accompanied William Hague in discussions with foreign governments, including ones in which he may have business interests, as if he was a future member of a Conservative Government
He concludes: "David Cameron has made a great thing about bringing honesty to British politics, yet there is this great big rotten apple at the core of his party, running the Tory campaign in marginal seats, and avoiding like the plague the transparency Mr Cameron talks about. The Tories can have no credibility on transparency while Lord Ashcroft is calling, and funding, their key political shots."
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