UPDATE 22:04 More dirt: he’s now been accused of “systematic tax avoidance”. It’s on Sky News too!
Much kudos to James Cowley and Chris Paul, who have dug up this David Cameron/Andrew Marr exchange from 2007:
ANDREW MARR: What about Lord Ashcroft? Because it was promised by the former party leader, William Hague, and indeed by Lord Ashcroft, way back, that he would be registered in this country, and a lot of people feel that he’s not properly registered in that way. Are you absolutely happy and satisfied that he is in a position to be making the kind of funding commitment to your party that he is?
DAVID CAMERON: I am satisfied that the undertakings he gave are being met and I have had reassurances on that. But I would like to put it in context.
ANDREW MARR: Being met, but haven’t been met.
DAVID CAMERON: No, in terms of the reassurances that he is resident in the UK and pays taxes in the UK.
If, as widely reported, Cameron only found out that Ashcroft was a non-dom last month then whoever gave these reassurances was, at a very generous best, using Michael Gove’s misleading “resident but non-domiciled” dodge with the Tory leader or, at worst, lying to him.
That the Tories admit that they’ve been operating some form of “don’t ask, don’t tell” regime at the highest level of their party is damaging enough and underscores how dire the alternative case is: that they’ve been telling everyone porkies for ten years.
For someone, somewhere, this is drifting rapidly into resignation territory.
